Complaint Review: DAVID E. PILCHER CPCU ARM AIC AAI

This person holds himself out as a professional expert witness and litigation support specialist in risk management, insurance claims and litigations. The firm I work for made the terrible mistake of retaining this person to assist them with a wrongful death case involving the death of a young child.

There were plenty of warning signs but unfortantely everyone was blinded by the need to retain a specific type of expert. Upon contacting him this guy seemed like a person you could really trust. He sounded geniunely interested in what someone had to say. However, there were some immidiate red flags. For starters in the agreement he sends you he adds a Non-Refundable clause. The Initial fee that he charges is $4,500. This did give us a pause however, we assumed that this guy was a professional since he markets himself on all of the well know expert witness sites.

Other red flags were that he charges $525 per hour for minimal tasks and $725 for any Court or deposition testimony. Still we decided to proceed and provided him with a check in the amount of $4,500. This guy then cashed the check. That is basically it. From that point on, this guy would not respond to communicaitons. We would email him and he would take a week to respond. He would say he was working on our flie without having received so much as a letter of explination. Then the excuses began to pile up. He went from being very busy to throwing his shoulder out to having medical tests to just completely ignorning our communications.

We informed this guy that Fed. Rule 26 Initial Disclosures were due and we needed him to get moving. He would either not respond, say he did could not find documents we sent him or would set up times he was supposed to get on the phone and he just flaked. The firm hired him on June 12, 2024 and upto yesterdays date he had not provided a single communicaiton regarding the case. The attorney on the case finally having enough cordially requested a refund for the amount provided minus any "reasonable fees" say of two possibly three hours. He also threatened the attorney to report him to the State Bar if he did not keep paying him money.

This guy immidately responded by saying absolutely not read the contract it says "Non Refundable" . He then began trying to strong arm by saying that the $4,500 only covered eight hours and that he was now up to 12 hours??Without anything to look at and  having recieved a dropbox link very recently?? Yeah right.

In any event thanks to this loser, the bereaved family that have already lost a small child have now had their money basically stolen, in my opinion. The firm has lost two months and Rule 26 Initial disclosures are due and there is nothing to present as far an expert report. In my personal opinion this guy is simply a theif that provides a contract to avoid being arrested. I mean how much of a low life scum bag do you have to be to steal from a low income family that lost a son and is seeking justice for his death.

Do yourself and your firm a favor stay far away from this charging expert.