Why I Chose to Build an Evaluation Practice—Not a Testimony Practice
One of the first questions attorneys ask when they contact me is perfectly reasonable.
"Do you provide expert testimony?"
My answer is usually not what they expect.
Generally speaking, no.
That response occasionally surprises people, especially since expert testimony has become a common part of many vocational evaluation practices. Some evaluators spend a significant portion of their careers preparing for depositions, appearing in court, and providing testimony on behalf of attorneys and their clients.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that approach.
It simply isn't the practice I chose to build.
That decision wasn't accidental, and it certainly wasn't because I lack confidence in my work.
In fact, it's quite the opposite.
I intentionally built EVALU8 around the idea that the most valuable thing I can provide is a thoughtful, objective, and thoroughly documented evaluation—not my presence in a courtroom months later explaining what I already wrote.
That philosophy influences every report I produce.
When I first entered the profession, what drew me to vocational evaluation wasn't the courtroom.
It was the evaluation itself.
I genuinely enjoy sitting down with people, learning about their lives, understanding their challenges, identifying their strengths, administering assessments, reviewing records, and putting all of those pieces together into something meaningful.
Every evaluation tells a story.
Not in the fictional sense.
But in the sense that every person arrives with experiences, abilities, limitations, goals, setbacks, and opportunities that deserve to be understood before anyone reaches conclusions about their future.
That process has always been the part of the profession I find most rewarding.
It's where I believe I provide the greatest value.
Court testimony is something entirely different.
It requires preparation, scheduling around court calendars, depositions, travel, waiting outside courtrooms, responding to cross-examination, and participating in an adversarial legal process.
There are evaluators who excel in that environment.
I have tremendous respect for them.
But I've never wanted that to become the focus of my career.
I'd rather spend my time evaluating another student, meeting with another family, assisting another attorney, or helping another client understand their options than spending an entire day waiting to testify for an hour.
That is simply where my passion lies.
Because of that decision, I approach every evaluation with a different mindset.
I assume I may never have the opportunity to verbally explain my conclusions.
That means the report has to do the work.
If someone reading the report has a question, my goal is for the answer to already be on the page.
If I reach a conclusion, I explain exactly how I reached it.
If I make a recommendation, I connect it to the findings that support it.
If testing influenced my opinion, I explain why.
If records affected my conclusions, I identify them.
Nothing should depend on my ability to stand in front of a judge and fill in the missing pieces.
There shouldn't be missing pieces.
A well-written report should speak for itself.
One of the biggest misconceptions about expert testimony is that it somehow makes an evaluation stronger.
In reality, testimony does not improve the quality of an evaluation.
The quality of the evaluation should already exist before anyone enters a courtroom.
A poorly reasoned report does not become persuasive simply because the evaluator explains it in person.
Likewise, a thorough, objective, evidence-based report does not lose its value simply because the evaluator never testifies.
The strength of an evaluation comes from the quality of its reasoning, the reliability of its methodology, the information on which it is based, and the clarity with which its conclusions are communicated.
That's where I choose to invest my time.
People occasionally ask why EVALU8's fee schedule includes testimony at such a substantially higher rate than the evaluations themselves.
The answer is simple.
The pricing is intentional.
It reflects the fact that testimony is outside the ordinary scope of my practice and significantly disrupts the work I have intentionally chosen to prioritize.
Preparing for testimony, traveling to court, waiting for cases to be called, and spending hours away from scheduled evaluations affects every other client on my calendar.
More importantly, I don't want courtroom testimony to become a routine part of my business.
The elevated fee isn't designed to encourage testimony.
If anything, it serves the opposite purpose.
It reflects my commitment to keeping the primary focus of EVALU8 exactly where I believe it belongs: on conducting exceptional evaluations.
Of course, there are situations where testimony cannot be avoided. A court may issue a subpoena or circumstances may require my appearance. When that happens, I fulfill my professional responsibilities.
But those situations are the exception—not the business model.
I also believe this philosophy helps preserve something that is incredibly important in evaluation work: objectivity.
Attorneys are advocates.
They should be.
Their responsibility is to advance their client's legal position.
My responsibility is different.
My role is to evaluate the facts, interpret the evidence, and communicate my professional opinions honestly—even if those findings aren't exactly what someone hoped they would be.
That distinction matters.
I've always believed the best relationship between an attorney and an evaluator is one built on independence.
The attorney should never have to wonder whether an opinion was shaped by the prospect of future testimony.
Likewise, the evaluator should never feel pressure to become an extension of either side's legal strategy.
My responsibility is to the integrity of the evaluation itself.
Everything else comes second.
Every evaluator has the opportunity to decide what kind of practice they want to build.
Some build practices centered around litigation support and courtroom testimony.
Others focus on rehabilitation counseling, disability services, education, career development, or private consultation.
None of those approaches is inherently right or wrong.
They're simply different.
At EVALU8, I made a conscious decision years ago.
I wanted to build an evaluation practice—not a testimony practice.
I wanted my work to be measured by the quality of the reports I produced, the objectivity of my conclusions, and the value those reports provided to attorneys, families, and individuals making important decisions.
Because at the end of the day, I don't believe the most valuable expert is necessarily the one sitting in the witness chair.
I believe it's the one whose report is so clear, thoughtful, and well-supported that it can confidently stand on its own.
