How to Ditch the Recruiter for Your Expert Witness Search

Finding the right expert witness in PTAB proceedings is crucial to success, but IP attorneys often have to rely on expensive recruiters to find these experts. Now, you can avoid unnecessary recruiter fees and identify the perfect expert independently with PTAB Expert Search.

As an attorney handling IPRs, you are well aware of the usual process for selecting expert witnesses. Before your case goes to the PTAB, you need to find an expert with relevant expertise. And in order to do that, you’ll likely hire a recruiter to conduct the search and present viable options. Then, you’ll end up paying recruiter fees that eat into your budget, diminishing firm profit. 

If you’re reading this, you, like us, see that the current system isn’t ideal. In fact, there is a misalignment of incentives between you (the litigator) and them (the recruiter). Recruiters are paid through one of two fee structures, both disadvantageous to the patent litigator:

1. The recruiter is paid a percentage of what the expert is paid. And experts are paid based on the time they put into case preparation. Therefore, a recruiter benefits from a longer case – even though their involvement is temporary.
2. The recruiter is paid a flat fee to identify an appropriate expert. In this case, the more time they search for a perfect candidate, the less profit the recruiter actually receives per hour of work. This incentive structure can lead to a quick, depthless search with no guarantee of quality.

On top of that, if you want to consult the same expert again in a separate case, you will need to re-hire the recruiter and pay the same fees all over again. As firms today are asked to do more with fewer resources, you may be looking for a way to cut costs and maximize profit.

The problem with recruiters is threefold: they are expensive, third-party, and come with no guarantee of quality return. But now, they are no longer necessary in expert selection.

After hearing these complaints from clients and industry peers, we looked to our database to see if there was a way to organize metrics on expert witnesses – their number of appearances, their quoted hourly rate, and their specific subject matter expertise. Through this collaboration, we created our new PTAB Expert Search, a one-stop shop for expert witness data, opposition research, and single-click client invoicing for your searches.

How PTAB Expert Search cuts cost and maximizes profit for IP firms

Find and compare the most reliable experts

Instead of relying on a recruiter to find the perfect expert, you can do it independently and avoid involving (and paying!) an outside consultant. Discover which expert witnesses are hired again and again by the most prominent players in your industry, and rank them based on technical expertise, their number of past appearances, cost, and more. Learn which experts have the most relevant technical expertise for your specific case and ensure a cost-efficient trial by hiring those within your desired budget. 

Conduct opposition research like never before

Under the current process, there is no real way to structure an argument based on past testimonies of the oppositional expert. Litigators don’t typically review histories of these experts, see declarations they’ve made in the past, and find inconsistencies that could strengthen their case.

Juristat PTAB Expert Search changes all that. Rather than paying a recruiter per search, your annual subscription allows for unlimited searches in our industry-leading expert database. This means you can conduct opposition research in ways you never could before. Whether you’re looking to get to know an expert for your own defense or to understand who is on the other side of your IPR, Juristat PTAB Expert Search allows you a level of control and transparency never before seen in the industry. 

Lower costs associated with PTAB cases

When discussing the product with your team, consider this: an annual subscription to Juristat PTAB Expert Search is one-third the cost of paying recruiters. That's the kind of statistic that'll make your clients (and your boss) happy. It’s time to say goodbye to expensive recruiter fees. 

With Juristat Expert Search, you pay once and use it as often as you'd like. Instead of regularly reaching out to the same recruiter to find you the same expert witnesses, you are in control. That's unlimited access, with no limits on the number of searches or number of seats.

Bill your client directly with one-click invoicing 

And to make all of this go down real smooth, invoicing is just a single click away. You and your staff can instantly generate an invoice for your search directly within the app, sending the bill for your search directly to your client.

This is truly a one-stop shop for anything related to expert witness selection. You won’t have to log into additional systems to ensure your payment. Save time, simplify your process, and redirect your efforts to more impactful tasks. 

Whether you want to protect your budget, reclaim control of the expert selection process, or better understand your opposition's stance in a PTAB proceeding, PTAB Expert Search makes Juristat the one centralized tool for all your patent research needs.   

Want to see our PTAB Expert Search in action? Watch our on-demand webinar, “Reinventing Your Expert Selection: Rely on Data, Not Recruiters,” or schedule a personalized walkthrough.