Covid-19 Expert Witnesses—These Specialties Will Be Indispensable

Bloomberg Law

June 05, 2020

By David Solomon, Global Head of GLG Law

The wave of lawsuits contending with the immense human and economic impact of Covid-19 is upon us, and growing. Experts of all stripes will be in enormous demand to assist in assessing merits of claims in areas like loss causation, workplace safety, nursing home care, and force majeure, says GLG Law’s David Solomon.

There’s still a lot we do not know about Covid-19, but its ramifications for the legal system are coming into sharper relief. One thing is clear—the wave of litigation predicted to arise from the outbreak will not come at some indeterminate future date. It is here.

More than 1,100 lawsuits related to Covid-19 have already been filed, even with some courts temporarily closed to new matters. These cases involve a broad spectrum of issues that reflects the breadth of Covid-19’s impact. Though these cases may not necessarily cite novel causes of action, the underlying conditions that gave rise to them—caused by the Covid-19 pandemic—are unprecedented.

The variety of the cases will put both experienced expert witnesses and experts perhaps never before needed in a courtroom in extraordinary demand—and potentially short supply. My team and I have been conducting research and speaking with litigators at law firms across the country to determine some of the issue areas in which expert witnesses will be in great demand.

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