Forensic Section Interview with Randall Thomas
Fourth in a series
The Experts' Express is pleased to publish these interviews of past leaders of the Forensic interest section since 1996. This is done to once again commend their service and to encourage a continuous momentum of strong leadership within the Section as it renews itself from year to year.
Forensic Chairpersons take on an extraordinary commitment by volunteering for a three-year term as Chair Elect, Chair, and Past Chair. Bob Paré, who has served in various roles on recent Forensic Section Boards, offered to interview each of the past leaders and bring to you their reflections. Interview # 4: Randall Thomas, Ph.D., CRC
Term of Service: 2000-2001
Bob Paré: Randall, it's been 10 years since you left your "official" mark and in the capacity of Chair on the Forensic Section. I first remember you from a Pre-Con Forensic presentation you made in Boston- - when was that? It was my first "induction" into the Section and I was blown away by the Life Care Planning material that you were offering at that time.
Randall Thomas: Boston was in 1999. We were NARPPS then. For some reason I have always been very interested in the value of TRAINING for the practitioner as they serve as "expert witnesses" in our legal system."
BP: I have seen the vast listing of Publications and Presentations that you have contributed to our field, per the web page that features your company, The National Center for Life Care Planning. Your long term focus on Life Care Planning, Ethics, and emerging information technology is quite apparent, in addition to Vocational Assessments. Before or in the midst of all this, is there something that dramatically stands out as part of the learning along your own career?
RT: Yes. That would be the NARPPS forensic workshop in Las Vegas when I was Chair-Elect and the committee had the responsibility for planning speakers. I knew a young attorney, Niles Hooper, in Jackson, MS and I was very impressed with him. I ask him to speak on Daubert at the Forensic Conference that year. He was young and looked very "non threatening". But he was a very bright attorney and hit us hard with Daubert issues.
Daubert was decided in 1993, if you remember, but until then, it really had not started to apply to us. Niles presentation made me very aware of the importance of reliability and procedure in out field. And I suspect he raised this awareness for many of the attendees. Niles did succeed in creating a lot anxiety for us at that conference. He knew how to ask questions that reflected our lack of preparedness. And he was able to illustrate what we needed to know and learn. He also reflected, for me, the era when lawyers and rehabilitation experts were "growing up together" in Life Care Plan litigation as well as in Earning Capacity.
BP: Do you think that that anxiety is something that by now has still not gone away for us?
RT: It has not for me. But we eventually learn to adapt and perform with reduced anxiety and greater confidence. We became more attuned to "reliability", to implications regarding the foundations upon which to build testimony as we know it today. Procedure and consistent methodology are very important. Those aspects of our forensic work were not nearly as critical in the mid and late 1990s. From my perspective, trial and deposition testimony was much easier when compared to today's legal environment. In the 1990's and early 2000's attorneys did not understand our field and the foundations of our opinions. Now they are more enlightened and better prepared for testimony from people in our field. And the legal environment is much more adversarial.
BP: You seem to dwell on the learning on to respond to question when under pressure as you talk about our role as experts witnesses. Please explain more for me, if you will.
RT: This means we have to listen carefully to the questions we are being ask in a legal testimony situation. For example a "verbally bright" individual is able to listen to words (in the questions) being used and, and in turn to parse them as they consider their answer. In the court system we resolve disagreements with "words". For people testifying as "expert witnesses", the process requires, what I call, "languaging" skills. That is, the ability to listen to a question and to provide a response that is accurate and meaningful. People in our profession need to, and want to, learn this skill.
Attorneys now do understand our "language", and we are no longer "growing up together" with the legal arena. Attorneys have a fairly effective way of training the newer members of their law firm to depose experts in our field. Attorneys will create anxiety for us in a testimony situation, and perhaps diminish the retaining attorney's confidence in us, while setting up a Daubert challenge.
I do not believe that our profession has set up a systematic method to train for skills in testimony. One thing that we have now and did not have then, by the way, is the listserv' and that can be a phenomenal tool when properly applied. Those new webinars are certainly also welcome. I'm glad to see the organization interest in continued skill building, and with things like your interviews here, that some type of institutional memory may have begun to occur. It would be a waste for newer members to not know or benefit from our collective journey and experience so far.
BP: Do you think that perhaps you and others like you may have outgrown the fabric of Forensic Section as we are today? I mean, does what we do still hold keen value for you?
RT: The Forensic section still holds great value to me. My primary identity has been and is still with THIS group! I have not outgrown it at all, although I am no longer as visible or have the time to contribute on the level that I once did. I miss it, and have had some very specific proposals to offer about the encouragement and training of newer members.
BP: Anything specific that you want to share along that line just now?
RT: Sure. It is hard for me to see, and discuss with you, Bob, an ongoing need without being somehow responsive to it. I'd like to work on a model, perhaps in our Conferences, that offers a "unique" learning process so that the learner may feel safe in hearing testimony questions and then forming productive answers to them. In a small environment with no audience, if we paired 4 learners with 2 seasoned folks, we could role play testimony in many ways… Learning often occurs in anxiety-provoking situations; it is then that "languaging" skills occur, too. I think that is something we could use more of.
BP: 'Sounds to me like you have not missed a beat in your quest to be a valuable trainer among us, Randall. Thanks for all your generous contributions. We are indebted. My own hope is that we may hear more on this and your other helpful ideas real soon.
