Members of MKB joined other attorneys and legal professionals throughout the Richmond area to judge teams of first and second year law students presenting a capital murder trial.  Many of MKB’s attorneys participated in the early rounds of the competition, and the firm’s named shareholders helped judge the semi-final round.  Ken Moran also assisted The Honorable John Rockecharlie from the General District Court of Chesterfield in presiding over the final round.  While both trial teams distinguished themselves in the finals competition, David McGill and Erica Giovanni, representing the state, narrowly defeated the defense team of Mary Hallerman and Jaime Wisegarver.

MKB salutes all the participants for their dedication, effort and skilled presentation, and looks forward to working with TAB in future competitions.

In my experience, this is a significant departure from standard practice in Virginia state courts, where parties frequently use the disclosures to put opposing counsel on notice of their expert witnesses’ identity and general opinions. Detailed discovery of expert witnesses has traditionally been reserved for deposition. Now, apparently, an expert will be bound by the four corners of the attorney prepared disclosure, even if opposing counsel explores additional opinions in detail in deposition.

In a recent case, although not required by the rules, we had our expert prepare a detailed report of his opinions and all of the bases for them — in large part due to the complexity of the issues our expert was addressing. I am certainly relieved, in light of this opinion that we chose this method of disclosure, as our trial is approaching later this month and I would hate to have added concern about possible limitations on our expert to our otherwise stressful trial preparation. While it will be a case by case determination, submission of detailed Rule 26 type reports from experts is probably the safest route to prevent a challenge to expert disclosures, at least until we see how trial court interpret Jones in their published and unpublished opinions.

I invite comment on this topic and ideas on how to avoid potential traps that this new opinion might create in complex cases requiring expert testimony.