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There aren't even 900 hours in a month. That's 765k for 900 billed hours, and you have to imagine that a good chunk of unbilled hours also occurred. So maybe th

by HWR_14 3y ago

There aren't even 900 hours in a month. That's 765k for 900 billed hours, and you have to imagine that a good chunk of unbilled hours also occurred. So maybe that's for the equivalent of 8 months of boring work. Not continuous 8 months either, you have to schedule other things between prepping. A lot of money. But not for a billion dollar lawsuit. As for "who can afford this" is a company worth tens of billions suing over a major product line vs a trillion dollar company.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> and you have to imagine that a good chunk of unbilled hours also occurred No, I don’t have to imagine that expert witnesses do an hourly-billed contract gig but are bad billing hours.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Once they get the contract. I guarantee that the recruitment process and negotiation process was more involved than a phone call. And there could be work specifically excluded as "billable hours" that is still work. For instance, is the time to fly out compensated?
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    All work that an expert does for a case is billable, including travel time. However, experts will frequently provide discounted or even unbilled work for individuals in certain circumstances (like criminal cases where the expert is testing in a forensic capacity to counter improper forensic analysis presented by a prosecution expert).
    - HWR_14 3y ago
      Some experts charge for their time at a reduced rate (e.g. 50%) for travel, some a predetermined amount (taking the risk of delays on themselves), some only for the cost of the tickets, hotels, meals, etc. There is, AFAIK and based on what I can Google, no universal answer.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > I guarantee that the recruitment process and negotiation process was more involved than a phone call. I suppose, but do you think that was more than 9 hours? Because 9 hours is only 1% of their time.
    - HWR_14 3y ago
      It could easily be more than 9 hours. How many people spend longer than that interviewing for a technical position across five rounds? And this is for one of the few experts Samsung will put up to defend a $xxx million suit. Plus, he works for MIT. He probably needs to clear his consulting work, which could be quick or not. MIT might have wanted a percentage. And if he wanted to use a grad student to assist him in prep work, negotiating that can add up too. There are other ways to add to the precontract numbers, but that should be enough.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        Nine hours per round times five rounds plus another nine hours to get clearance is still only 6% And that's a huge number of hours for each round. It's really hard to reach "a good chunk" when compared to 900 hours. I was considering saying 90 hours in my first post. If MIT wants a cut that's a different issue, and I doubt negotiating that will take particularly long.

by HWR_14 3y ago

dragonwriter 3y ago

> and you have to imagine that a good chunk of unbilled hours also occurred No, I don’t have to imagine that expert witnesses do an hourly-billed contract gig but are bad billing hours.

HWR_14 3y ago
Once they get the contract. I guarantee that the recruitment process and negotiation process was more involved than a phone call. And there could be work specifically excluded as "billable hours" that is still work. For instance, is the time to fly out compensated?
- gamblor956 3y ago
  All work that an expert does for a case is billable, including travel time. However, experts will frequently provide discounted or even unbilled work for individuals in certain circumstances (like criminal cases where the expert is testing in a forensic capacity to counter improper forensic analysis presented by a prosecution expert).
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    Some experts charge for their time at a reduced rate (e.g. 50%) for travel, some a predetermined amount (taking the risk of delays on themselves), some only for the cost of the tickets, hotels, meals, etc. There is, AFAIK and based on what I can Google, no universal answer.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > I guarantee that the recruitment process and negotiation process was more involved than a phone call. I suppose, but do you think that was more than 9 hours? Because 9 hours is only 1% of their time.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    It could easily be more than 9 hours. How many people spend longer than that interviewing for a technical position across five rounds? And this is for one of the few experts Samsung will put up to defend a $xxx million suit. Plus, he works for MIT. He probably needs to clear his consulting work, which could be quick or not. MIT might have wanted a percentage. And if he wanted to use a grad student to assist him in prep work, negotiating that can add up too. There are other ways to add to the precontract numbers, but that should be enough.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Nine hours per round times five rounds plus another nine hours to get clearance is still only 6% And that's a huge number of hours for each round. It's really hard to reach "a good chunk" when compared to 900 hours. I was considering saying 90 hours in my first post. If MIT wants a cut that's a different issue, and I doubt negotiating that will take particularly long.