Excess Baggage in the Court Room

What do attorneys ask economists bring to the court room when they testify? In an informal survey, revealed that 3 out of 6 economist bring the entire case file, most bring at least the report and a clean C.V.

Some of the comments from the survey were:

I like to just take the absolute necessary to the witness stand and leave my briefcase with file in the first row of the gallery. Any exhibits will be handed to you. Spreadsheets are either blown up or on ppt. Everything else is committed to memory.

I have found that because New York state court rules do not require submission of expert reports, NY trials often involve the adversary attorney asking to examine the expert's file, sometimes taking a recess to do so, prior to any cross-examination. This is forced upon attorneys since depositions are all but non-existent in NY. case

The whole d*mned file. There's nothing in there that can 'hurt' me. It's often the case that there's some obscure note that can help a lot.


For trial, I bring absolutely nothing to the stand, and am not allowed to bring anything for that matter. Any exhibits for my testimony are required to be submitted beforehand. In my briefcase I usually bring some notes and outlines to rehearse while waiting around, but that doesn't go up to the stand.