The attorney’s job is to win; the job of an expert witness is to be truthful and to educate,” says Dr. Brian E. Woodruff, MD, board certified pediatric neurologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois.
Woodruff has been in practice for 20 years, 15 of them reviewing cases as an expert witness. He has been to trial 25 times and has been deposed more than 200 times. His opinions are fairly evenly balanced between plaintiff and defense cases. He is most often retained to review cases in which children are affected by hypoxic brain injury secondary to a lack of oxygen and traumatic brain injuries from a fall, a motor vehicle accident, or some other trauma.
“I think there’s certainly a shortage of pediatric neurologists willing and able to review cases. It is certainly something that is needed and it’s something I enjoy doing,” he says. He cites a 2018 case in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which involved a boy who was delivered with a brachial plexus injury, an injury to the nerves in his arm. The baby also had a hypoxic brain injury due to getting stuck in the birth canal. Woodruff was called to review the case for the plaintiff.
The child suffered serious brain injury, but the legal team had to overcome a significant challenge – the MRI did not show a lot of brain injury. Yet through examination of the birth history and psychological testing, the attorneys succeeded.
Woodruff says, “We were well prepared in that case. Next to honesty, preparation is the most important part about being an expert. To be successful you have to be prepared. You need to know what is in those records and everything very, very well, and you need to spend the time to understand the case like you would if you were taking a test in medical school.”
