Seven Questions to Ask Before You Retain a Forensic Psychologist

Whether you practice family, civil, or criminal law, the evaluator you choose can strengthen your case or become its weakest point. Here’s how to vet one.

Retaining a forensic psychologist is a consequential decision. The right expert produces a report that narrows the dispute, withstands cross-examination, and gives the court a defensible basis to rule. The wrong one produces an opinion that opposing counsel dismantles — sometimes taking your position down with it. These are the questions worth asking before you engage anyone.

1.       Is your practice actually forensic, or primarily clinical? Treating patients and evaluating litigants are different disciplines with different rules, different ethics, and different standards of proof. A skilled therapist is not automatically a competent forensic evaluator. Ask how much of their work is forensic, and whether they understand the distinction between a treating and an evaluating role — because blurring the two is a classic cross-examination target.

2.       Have you conducted this specific type of evaluation before? Forensic psychology is not one skill. Competency, criminal responsibility, parental fitness, custody, and civil damages each demand different methods and instruments. Ask how many of this kind of evaluation the expert has done, and whether they’ve testified on them.

3.       What is your methodology, and does it rely on multiple sources? A defensible opinion rests on more than one interview. Ask what the evaluation will include — clinical interviews, standardized testing, direct observation, collateral contacts, records review — and how they weigh sources that conflict. If the answer is thin, the report will be too.

4.       How do you handle data that cuts against your conclusion? This is the most revealing question you can ask. A credible evaluator welcomes it: they document contrary evidence, explain how they weighed it, and can articulate the limits of their own opinion. An evaluator who claims certainty and dismisses the question is telling you how they’ll perform under cross.

5.       How do you address malingering or exaggeration? In contested matters, the possibility that someone is over- or under-reporting is always live. Ask how they assess response style and effort. “I can usually just tell” is not an answer that survives a good cross-examination; structured assessment is.

6.       Are you comfortable — and experienced — testifying? A brilliant report is worth little if the expert falls apart on the stand. Ask about their testimony experience, how they handle aggressive cross, and whether they can explain complex findings to a lay jury without overstating them.

7.       Where are the limits of what you can offer? The strongest experts are the first to tell you what an evaluation can’t establish and where a case may need a different specialist. An expert who promises to reach whatever conclusion helps you is a liability, not an asset — and courts can smell it.

The through-line

Notice what these questions have in common: none of them is “will you give me a favorable opinion?” The value of a forensic evaluation isn’t a conclusion that helps you — it’s one that holds. An expert who is even-handed, methodologically rigorous, candid about limits, and steady under cross gives you something you can build a case on.

If you’re weighing whether a matter calls for a forensic evaluation, and what kind, I’m glad to talk it through before you commit. I conduct civil and criminal forensic evaluations — including parental fitness, custody, competency, and federal criminal matters — and part of that work is helping counsel scope the right question from the start.

Dr. Aubree Harrington is a forensic psychologist serving attorneys across family, civil, and criminal practice. To discuss a case or request an evaluation, contact the practice.