Maritime & Aviation Consultants is a referral company with experts having maritime or aviation disciplines. Recently, three attorneys asked MAC to provide referrals and then refuse to pay the $75 referral fee because they did not use the experts. It was not that the experts were not qualified. In two of these cases, the expert had not even been contacted.
Although the MAC fees are published on page seven every newsletter, and on the MAC web site, those fees may not be obvious to all. When asking for a service, it is and should normally be expected that you will pay for the service requested. MAC has structured its fees as the lowest in the expert referral industry. Several referral companies, including TASA, add $50 to $60 to the hourly fee of the expert. That raises the rate for each hour paid by the client by up to 50%. Other companies add a percentage, the lowest of which is 20%. Still others, such as the National Forensic Center, charge the expert for the listing and publish the experts name in a book or on a website. With such a listing, there is no interview with the expert or personal case by case evaluation by the referral service of what is needed..
In the case of MAC's fees, there is an up front fee varying from $75 to $100 to be paid by the requestor. This fee is payable whether the requestor uses the expert or not, unless the requestor finds the expert unqualified. MAC also gets a referral fee from the expert of 10% of the fees paid to the expert.
What services does the requestor receive for his money? First, before an expert is referred, the expert is interviewed by MAC with regards to the fact situation to determine if both the expert and MAC feel that the expert is qualified for that particular fact situation. An attorney experienced in the use of expert witnesses conducts this interview by phone. The requestor is then provided with the name and phone number of the expert. If requested, a curriculum vitae is furnished at an additional fee.
Once the requestor is furnished with the experts name and phone number, the referral aspect is complete. It is then up to the requestor to contact the expert and negotiate for the experts services.
Users of MAC's referral service also receive a complimentary one year subscription to the MAC newsletter.