Science + law = profit?

November 8, 2013 7:36 PM

Scientist interested in transitioning from the lab into a legal advisory position. Advice? Cautionary tales?

I've been working in biology and biochemistry labs for over 15 years, with most of my experience in forensic DNA analysis. Because of that, I have a great deal of experience working with lawyers and presenting complicated scientific topics in the courtroom, and have received consistently glowing feedback from both prosecutors and defense attorneys. Lately I have been considering a career change. Being an in-house scientific advisor to a law firm, doing background research and helping litigators better understand their evidence, seems like it might be a good fit.

I know the answer to "should I go to law school?" is almost always "DEAR GOD NO" these days. My local university offers a joint law and science degree program that looks awesome but can only be done on a full-time basis, which isn't feasible for financial and other reasons. I do already have a BA & MS in the sciences. Is there some sort of law certificate program that might be a helpful credential rather than the JD? Paralegal training plus scientific knowledge for the win?

Throwaway email: [e-mail]

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Lawyer here. It is hard for me to imagine something like an "in-house scientific advisor" for a law firm. If we have science issues in a case, we just retain an expert for that field. They are the ones who help me better understand evidence in my cases. I might have cases that involve metallurgy, neurological issues, fire cause and origin, or electrical engineering. No "in-house scientific advisor" could wear all of those hats. I find it hard to imagine what such a job would even entail.

And that, frankly, is where you probably want to be. Expert witnesses in civil matters can do very well and bill several hundred dollars an hour. Overhead is low. Those who are full-time experts, however, are generally rock stars in their fields. Most other experts have their day jobs and do the expert testimony part-time. For example, I have two expert depositions next week. One of the expert is a full-time rock star; he's nominally retired but he seems to work as hard as any full-timer I know of. The other works at his own consulting firm and does the expert testimony on almost (but not quite) a full-time basis.

I would defer to other scientists who might answer your question, but I would think the best path would be to work at a biochemistry consulting firm (perhaps eventually start your own). You probably already have a good reputation as a trial witness from the criminal realm, so start transferring that over into the civil world. Those prosecutors and particularly defense attorneys can be good referral sources for their civil colleagues. For example, I could imagine wanting to hire someone like you in a toxic tort case or maybe a products liability case where a fungicide allegedly killed off someone's crops.

The best experts are the ones who are still practicing their trade. So, I think you need to keep working in biochemistry if you want to be a biochemistry wonk would somehow is involved in legal matters.

Any sort of legal training (paralegal? great googly moogly, no) just does not make sense. Your science credentials are what's going to make your living.
posted by Tanizaki at 8:21 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Another lawyer here: "in-house scientific advisor to a law firm" isn't actually a job. To the extent that such a thing exists, it's basically just a lawyer with a STEM degree. There are a bunch of them out there. All a lawyer really needs to do is have enough understanding of what's going on to be able to flag and call out bullshit from the other side and be able to have meaningful conversations with experts. The rest of it is what we do in every case: analyze and incorporate arbitrary sets of information into our theory of the case.

This drives subject matter experts absolutely up the freaking wall, as we wind up interacting with their subjects in ways that no professional in that subject would dream of doing, and usually have disagreements about what constitute the important details. Sometimes that's because the lawyers in question are totally clueless. But more often than not, it's because the lawyers in question, even if clueless about the science, know exactly what they're doing with respect to litigation. We don't need or particularly care about the science as such. We need to know which facts are going to help us win, and how to best use those facts to our advantage. If what the subject-matter expert thinks is important doesn't help us, we'll find something about the situation that does, even if the expert thinks it's irrelevant. That's our job.

Stick with your expert witness gig. If you want to do more of that, there are networks out there for which you can sign up that put experts in touch with attorneys and vice versa. But whatever you do, don't move to a firm that does strictly expert testimony. Attorneys--and juries!--tend to view such people as whores. The best experts, both substantively and strategically, are those who are either actively practicing in their field or engaged in research at reputable universities.
posted by valkyryn at 2:27 AM on November 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

This is in fact a job that actually exists, at least at patent boutiques or large firms with robust patent practices. "Technical advisor" may be the term you are looking for. Ropes & Gray and Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto are two examples that come to this non-patent lawyer's mind. Some even pay your law school tuition and try to hire you as a lawyer when you finish school. I would do some searches for firms like this and see what's out there.
posted by MeadowlarkMaude at 2:29 PM on November 9, 2013