Services

Texas PCS provides several Litigation Services including (but not limited to) Attorney and Case Counsultations.

Ms. Logan’s expertise can be used to assist attorneys as a testifying expert (educational testimony), expert reviewer of an evaluation, consultant, and/or trial consultant.  Ms. Logan is able to refine and provide clarity when a helping professional has potentially misused, misapplied, and/or incorrectly incorporated outdated and/or non-applicable literature to a case.

Ms. Logan’s services are provided for attorneys; therefore, Ms. Logan will not directly assist or serve in an expert role for self-represented parties.  If a litigant no longer chooses to utilize an attorney, or the attorney withdraws, Ms. Logan’s expert services will be terminated. 

There are various roles to assist attorneys; however, it is important to consider that prior to using Ms. Logan’s services, which role you are seeking, as generally Ms. Logan will not and cannot (due to ethical obligations) combine roles.  As example, if Ms. Logan is initially utilized as a consultant, she generally will not be able to later serve in the same case as a testifying expert witness.

When selecting an expert, in addition to a review of their training and experience (such as on their CV), it is significant to consider that the astute expert will be privy to the following:

• Combining the role of a clinician and a forensic role may increase the likelihood that objectivity is compromised and may possibly contribute to a conflict of interest.  
  
  
• When offering expert testimony to aid the trier of fact, a forensic practitioner is committed to the goals of objectivity and fairness. 
  
  
• A Reviewer generally will not meet with litigants, and the reviewer’s role includes detecting strengths and weaknesses of the evaluator’s work as related to quality, accuracy as well as the evaluator’s basis for opinion and how it was applied to data. 
  
  
• An Expert Witness generally should remain as a singular role because this role is to aid a Judge or Jury.  The Expert Witness role is not “to win.” 
  
  
• A Consultant is generally considered to have a partisan position (they are retained vs. appointed), and if the mental health professional moves into an Expert Witness role, the possibility of an ethical violation may increase. 
  
  
• It is common for litigants to want to meet with mental health experts who have been retained by their attorney; however, experts who have contact with the litigant, the litigant’s family members, or friends, may be perceived as an “advocate,” as well as become less objective and less credible.

It is important to remain focused on the function of the forensic roles, and not just the label that is attached to the forensic role.  There will be times when roles will overlap, but it is imperative that the expert you choose knows how to decipher among the various forensic roles, when the expert should cross the forensic line, and when the forensic expert’s reigns should be restricted.

Please click here for Ms. Logan’s CV

Ms. Logan can be reached at: mlogan@texaspcs.org