Mediation often turns on a single question: whose number can the mediator — and the other side — believe? Your damages expert shapes that answer. Before mediation, make sure you can ask these questions and get satisfying answers.

What Are Your Key Assumptions?

Every damages model rests on assumptions: growth rates, discount rates, work-life expectancy, the “but-for” world. Ask your expert to name the three assumptions that move the number most — and what happens to the bottom line if each one shifts. If the opinion collapses under modest changes, you need to know that before the mediator does.

Where Does Your Data Come From?

Reliable opinions rest on recognized data sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics earnings figures, published life tables, audited financials. Press on anything that looks like an unsupported assertion. An expert who can cite the source for every input is an expert who will survive a tough mediation — and a Daubert challenge.

Can You Explain This to a Jury?

Ask for the two-minute version. If the expert cannot explain the damages theory in plain language to you, the mediator and a jury will fare no better. Clarity is not dumbing down — it is the mark of someone who truly understands the economics.

What Would Change Your Number?

An expert who has considered what could prove them wrong is a credible expert. Ask what evidence would move the opinion up or down, and how the analysis handles the opposing expert’s approach. The answers reveal preparation — or the lack of it.

The expert you bring to mediation is the expert you may bring to trial. Choose one whose work you can defend as your own.