Circumstances where an Employability Evaluation is Essential

Do you have a client in your family law practice who is underemployed, unemployed, or disabled? Do you have a client in your personal injury practice who has suffered a permanent injury that has impacted his or her ability to work? If so, then you should get in touch with an expert in vocational services who can do an employability evaluation for your case.

Indeed, probably the most important part of a divorce case is showing a spouse’s earning capacity, and the most important part of a personal injury case is proving damages. For both circumstances, having a vocational services expert on hand will make your job easier and make it more probable that you will get a good result for your client. A vocational services expert will be able to provide you with an employability evaluation, with the ability to give quality testimony in court, and even with customized trial exhibits.

Divorce Cases

As noted above, you are likely to have a case in which one spouse is unemployed, underemployed, or disabled. The best way to put evidence before the judge that the spouse is only entitled to a certain support payment is to have an expert perform an employability evaluation.  

With that type of vocational services assessment, you can get hard numbers showing what a person’s earning capacity can be, based on education, skills, and past employment. Moreover, in connection with a spouse who suffers from a disability, the vocational expert can perform an assessment that takes into account the person’s medical history, can perform vocational testing, analyze the spouse’s transferable skills, and do informative research on what the marketplace will pay for someone with limitations.  

In fact, a good vocational services expert will also be able to evaluate the employability effect of any type of life change, like loss of a job, a new career, or relocation.  

Personal Injury Cases

Employability evaluations are vital to proving personal injury damages. In particular, an employability evaluation should be used for clients with the following injuries:

1. Low back injuries,

2. Traumatic brain injuries,

3. Neck injuries,

4. Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy,

5. Loss of vision,

6. Severe non-healing fractures,

7. Spinal cord injury, and

8. Burns.

Note that employability evaluations are not just for physical injuries. Such evaluations are key for psychological and psychiatric trauma as well.  

What Goes into an Employability Evaluation?

There are five main elements that a vocational expert will employ when doing an employability evaluation. They are:

1. Document review

2. Standardized vocational diagnostic interview

3. Work and transferable skills analysis

4. Vocational testing and

5. Formulation of an employability opinion.

As you can see, the five elements include both evaluation and diagnostic tools. The evaluation tools include document review, diagnostic interview, and vocational testing. The expert’s application of his or her knowledge to the case at hand comes into play with the work and transferable skills analysis as well as the ultimate employability opinion.

How Long Does it Normally take to Complete an Employability Evaluation?

Typically, an evaluation can be completed in four to six weeks. Then, the vocational services expert will be available for testimony and exhibits at trial. Having worked on an evaluation for your client over the course of four to six weeks means that the vocational services expert will be very knowledgeable about most aspects of your case. That could prove to be very handy when planning strategy as you move towards trial.  

In personal injury cases, it has been our experience at OAS that attorneys know that they have a “substantial” case if the obstacle of liability can be overcome and if there is sufficient coverage. 

However, few attorneys are cognizant of how they can document damages in an objective and meaningful way that justifies their demand to the defense or the insurance company.

What Are Some Helpful Ways to Use a Vocational Expert as an Advantage for your Case?

OAS vocational experts have been used by attorneys to bridge the gap between medical evidence relating to the disability, and economic reports that project damages into the future. 

An attorney should use a vocational expert for three reasons:

1. To determine the worth of the case

2. To move the case toward settlement by justifying the amount of the demand

3. To objectively document the case damages at the time of trial