Nancy Hudes and I are collaborating through Regulatory Solutions Consultancy, LLC, a new consultancy positively leveraging constraints and finding advantages in the licensed beverage industry. If we can assist you in matters of alcoholic beverage law, do not hesitate to give us a call.

You may not yet know that you need an expert witness? But, in a public hearing before a Board of Liquor License Commissioners, expert witness testimony often is admitted, in the form of an opinion, if the Board determines that the testimony will assist it, as the trier of fact, to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.

Thomas Jefferson may be the earliest known expert witness in an American court when in 1771 in Hite v. Fairfax, the future President offered his knowledge and experience on behalf of Lord Fairfax, a proprietary land owner, in a complicated chancery suit. Dr. Henry Chang-Yu Lee may be the best known modern expert witness for his forensic science analysis and testimony challenging the police collection of blood evidence that was instrumental in O.J. Simpson being found not guilty of murder. And Michael Egen is a counterfeit wine expert consulting and testifying about wine authenticity, including for the FBI.

Stuart Kaplow, has testified as the expert witness on alcoholic beverage matters and could be your expert.

We can provide a written report and expert testimony before a local liquor licensing board as is considers “.. the public need and desire for the license.” Maryland the law provides the “local licensing board shall deny a license application .. if the local licensing board determines that .. the granting of the license is not necessary to accommodate the public.” And the testimony of an expert is the way to address that legal test.

In making a determination to accept expert testimony on that and other matters, the local liquor licensing board will determine whether the witness is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education; the appropriateness of the expert testimony on the particular subject; and, whether a sufficient factual basis exists to support the expert testimony. We are qualified and have the experience to satisfy those requirements.

We may need your assistance to form the basis of our expert opinions. The facts or data in a particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion are those perceived by or made known to the expert at or before the hearing. Ideally, we develop and can offer testimony of alternative and redundant theories, at times based upon facts independently developed or based on third party purchased market data, to advance each case.

All of this noted, none of this limits the right of an opposing party to cross examine an expert witness or to test the basis of the expert’s opinion or inference.

Interestingly, testimony in the form of an opinion or inference otherwise admissible is not objectionable merely because it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the local liquor licensing board. There is much courtroom debate over experts in litigation, from medical malpractice cases to lead paint cases, but much of that debate does not extend to the administrative proceedings that are alcoholic beverage licensing matters. There are formal rules of evidence that govern expert testimony in federal and state courts, but liquor licensing boards use ‘relaxed’ lass formal rules, common in administrative proceedings, allowing wider and more expansive use of experts in liquor licensing hearings.

When you think you may need an expert, we would be pleased to work with you and your attorney to provide analysis and expert witness testimony for your liquor licensing board hearing, and more.