Reinventing yourself after retirement can take many forms. I morphed from a judge to an executive director of Temple’s Sheller Center for Social Justice and then into an arbitrator/mediator for the Dispute Resolution Institute.
Now, it seems, I have morphed once again. This time into an expert witness. Now at first glance, this was very amusing since, as a judge, everyone told me I knew nothing and, thus, every decision I made was on the road to reversal. However, a few years ago I began getting inquiries. Attorneys wanted to know what I knew about wrongful use of civil proceedings, (the infamous Dragonetti cases), legal malpractice and defamation. My first thought was “not very much.” After all, I had not practiced law in 30 years. Then I rethought it. I may not have practiced law but I had supervised, ruled on, and tried hundreds of those cases during my 30-plus years on the bench. So, I slowly tipsy-toed into the murky waters of the expert witness realm.
