An economic damages report is priced by the time it takes a qualified economist to build it, and that time is set by three things: the condition of the records, the number of loss components the claim carries, and the testimony the case will require. The fee is hourly, applied against a retainer, with a written estimate before the work begins and a disclosed compensation arrangement in the report itself; it is never contingent on the outcome. This guide explains what the hours are spent on, why one claim takes a fraction of the time another does, how testimony is priced and why it is the least predictable part, how the fee is structured, and what counsel can do to keep the cost in proportion to the claim.
The fee for an economic damages report buys professional hours, and the hours fall into five kinds of work. Records review is the reading of every wage form, tax return, pay record, benefit document, business statement, and deposition transcript the claim rests on, and the reconciling of each figure to a second record. Data collection is the gathering of the published series the projection needs: the wage growth series, the worklife tables, the life tables, the benefit cost data, the consumption tables, and the yields that fix the discount rate, each in the edition that fits the valuation date. Modeling is the building of the schedules that carry the but-for and actual streams to the horizon and discount them. Report preparation is the writing of the narrative, the assumptions page, the records list, and the exhibits in the form the venue's disclosure rules require. Testimony is the deposition and the trial, with their preparation.
Nothing in that list is the number itself. The figure a report reaches has no bearing on what the report costs, and a report that concludes the loss is small takes as long to build as one that concludes it is large, because the same records have to be read and the same schedules built either way. The cost of a lost earnings engagement or a wrongful death engagement is described on the service pages in the same terms: scope, drivers, and billing structure.
The single largest variable in the cost of a report is the state of the records when they arrive. A wage earner with a run of wage forms and tax returns, a current pay stub, and a benefits summary gives the economist an earnings base that can be built and reconciled in a short pass. A self-employed person whose business returns, general ledger, and bank statements have to be read together to separate the owner's labor from the return on the business, or a person whose records are incomplete, inconsistent, or still being produced, can take several times as long to reach the same point. The time is spent reconciling, and reconciling is what keeps a report from being revised after deposition when a late record changes a number.
Records that arrive in pieces cost more than the same records produced at once, because each new production reopens the base and the schedules that depend on it. A report built on a partial production and then updated twice has been built three times. The tax returns post and its companions in the Records series describe what each record adds and, by implication, what its absence costs.
Each component of a claim is its own model with its own records and its own published data. A claim limited to lost earnings has one stream to project. Adding fringe benefits adds the plan documents and the employer cost data; adding household services adds the time-use data and the replacement cost series; adding a future medical cost stream adds the cost projection of each item in a care plan prepared by another professional. A wrongful death claim multiplies the work again, because the support to each survivor runs for a different period and the personal consumption deduction has to be built for the household as it stood at the death. The wrongful death guide lists the components that claim usually carries, and each one on the list is a block of hours.
Contested inputs add time in a different way. Where the worklife horizon, the growth rate, or the discount rate is in dispute, the report presents the result under more than one assumption so the reader can see what each contributes, and the sensitivity schedules are built and explained like any other. A report that will face an opposing economist is built to answer the questions the opposing report will raise, and that is more work than a report prepared for a settlement conference where no one will cross-examine it.
The report can be estimated closely once the records are in hand. Testimony cannot, because it depends on decisions the economist does not make. A deposition that is noticed, prepared for, and then postponed costs the preparation twice. A trial that settles on the morning of the economist's appearance costs the preparation and the travel and nothing more; one that runs long costs days of waiting. Deposition and trial time are billed as they are incurred, with preparation and travel, and the estimate separates them from the report so that counsel can see what the written work will cost whether or not the case is tried.
In federal practice, and in the many state courts that follow it, the written disclosure states the compensation to be paid for the study and the testimony, so the fee arrangement is a disclosed fact of the case rather than a private one, and the disclosure rules guide explains what the statement has to contain. Opposing counsel will read it, and a fee that is out of proportion to the work described is a cross-examination theme in its own right, which is one more reason the hours are recorded against the tasks that consumed them.
The fee is hourly, with a retainer established at the outset and applied against time as it is incurred, a written fee schedule, and a cost estimate before work begins. The estimate is revised when the records show the scope to be wider or narrower than the engagement letter assumed, and counsel is told before the revised estimate is exceeded. Records review, data collection, modeling, and report preparation are billed as the work is done; testimony is billed when it occurs. A consulting engagement, in which the economist reviews the claim or an opposing report and advises counsel without being disclosed as a witness, is billed the same way and usually costs less because no report in disclosure form is written.
The fee is never contingent on the outcome of the case or on the size of the figure, and the professional ethics statements of the forensic economics associations say so in terms. An economist paid a share of the recovery has a stake in the number, and an opinion built by someone with a stake in the number is not an opinion a court should rely on. The point is not a formality: the first question asked of any damages expert at deposition is who is paying and how much, and the only answer that protects the opinion is an hourly fee for work actually performed, disclosed in the report, the same for the plaintiff's economist and the defendant's.
The cost of a report is mostly within counsel's control. Produce the records at once and in full: the wage forms, the returns with every schedule, the pay records, the benefit documents, and, for a business, the returns, the ledger, and the statements, so the base is built once. Define the question before the engagement begins, because a report asked to value every conceivable component and then narrowed at deposition has paid for the components it dropped. Retain early enough that the report is built in the ordinary course rather than against a disclosure deadline, since compressed work is not cheaper and is more often revised. Where the dispute is narrow, ask whether a consulting review or a critique of the opposing report will serve before commissioning a full affirmative report; the when to retain an economist guide and the report review service describe the narrower engagements.
Finally, weigh the cost against the claim. A motor vehicle matter venued in New Jersey, or anywhere, with a short period of lost wages and a documented return to work may need a letter report or a consultation rather than a full study; a claim that will carry a case to trial needs the full study and the sensitivities, and the cost of building it well is small beside the cost of a report that an opposing economist takes apart. The estimate exists so that counsel can make that judgment with the figures in front of them.
No. The fee is hourly for the work performed, applied against a retainer, and it is the same whether the figure the report reaches is large or small and whether the case is won, lost, or settled. The professional ethics statements of the forensic economics associations prohibit contingent compensation, and the compensation arrangement is disclosed in the report itself.
Because it carries more components, each with its own records and data: the decedent's earnings and benefits, the household services, the support to each survivor over a different period, and the personal consumption deduction built for the household as it stood at the death. Each component is a separate model, and the schedules have to reconcile to one another before they reconcile to the total.
A written estimate is given at the outset from what is known about the claim: the components, the person's employment, and the records expected. It is revised once the records arrive and show the scope, and counsel is told before a revised estimate is exceeded. Testimony is estimated separately, because its timing and length depend on decisions outside the economist's control.
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