Our professional services include furnishing assessments, and testimonials to satisfy the requirements of plaintiff, applicant and defense attorneys, insurance companies, and other parties involved in Workers’ Compensation, Personal Injury, Family Law, and ADA compliance matters.
As qualified Forensic Vocational Experts specializing in California Workers’ Compensation, we are well-equipped to provide a range of evaluation services, including those of a Court-Appointed Forensic Vocational Expert, an Agreed Forensic Vocational Expert or an Independent Forensic Vocational Expert.
Apart from offering expert testimony, we provide valuable assistance to attorneys by conducting vocational assessments, job analyses and earning capacity evaluations. These tools are crucial in comprehensively understanding the individual’s work-related abilities and limitations. Furthermore, they can reinforce the attorney’s arguments in court, ultimately resulting in a more favorable outcome for their client.
As Forensic Vocational Experts, we understand the importance of effectively communicating our opinions to attorneys who handle Workers’ Compensation, Personal Injury, Family Law, and ADA Compliance.
Our primary objective is to educate the attorneys about how the individual’s injury affects their ability to compete in the local labor market, given their medical and/or psychiatric restrictions.
Keith Wilkinson possesses ample experience conducting Family Law §4331 evaluations and serves as a seasoned Forensic Vocational Expert in various types of cases, including Workers’ Compensation Labor Code §4660 Cases, Personal Injury, Workplace Discrimination and ADA Compliance.
He has been called upon to testify in over 120 hearings across a range of venues, including federal and state courts, family Law courts and California Workers’ Compensation settings.
With over 35 years of vocational rehabilitation experience, he has conducted or overseen more than 10,000 evaluations. He has also provided expert testimony in over 120 hearings in Northern and Southern California Courts and, in addition, has completed over 60 depositions throughout his career.
He has been invited to be a speaker at seminars catering to vocational experts, applicants’ attorneys, defense attorneys, Third Party Administrators and Insurance Companies. His expertise is sought after to share insights on report preparation and testimony related to Ogilvie, Le Boeuf and Diminished Future Earning Capacity.
He has maintained the status of diplomate with the American Board of Vocational Experts for over a decade, having earned this title in 2008. His expertise is recognized by his active involvement as a valuable contributor to the credentials and ethics committees, further showcasing his commitment and dedication to the field.
He has made valuable contributions to the field of rehabilitation as a Member-at-Large representing Southern California and as a distinguished member of the standards committee with the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals, where he served for a period of 2 years.
As a member of SCREE, he shared his expertise by presenting seminars on ethics, resume preparation and job development. In addition, he served as a contributing editor to the Scree newsletter, where he authored bi-monthly articles providing insights on national and local economic employment outlooks.
Katelyn Wilkinson joined Keith Wilkinson & Assoc. in 2018 and began her tenure as a receptionist, where she deftly handled various clerical duties. Over time, she expanded her role and took on additional responsibilities with career counseling clients providing instruction on interview techniques, conducting mock interviews with video analysis, and following up to discuss the outcomes of actual interviews.
She has recently completed a master's degree in Human Resource Management from the University of Southern California. Currently, she is in training as a Forensic Vocational expert, having already completed expert preparation classes through the ABVE, and has actively participated in the ABVE annual conference. Furthermore, she proudly holds membership in the American Board of Vocational Experts, underscoring her dedication to professional excellence in her field.
Simultaneously, she is hands-on in conducting interviews and assisting with test administration under the guidance of Keith Wilkinson. Her involvement extends to conducting thorough labor market research and diligently proofreading forensic vocational expert reports prepared by Keith Wilkinson.
At KWA, we thoroughly assess the transferable skills of individuals we work with in all areas of law, taking into consideration any limitations or restrictions caused by injuries, as well as their work history, education, and skills. This comprehensive analysis includes the evaluation of the local job market to identify potential job opportunities that aligned with the individual’s abilities. To ensure accurate assessments, we exclusively utilize the McCroskey Vocational Quotient System and our operations.
At Keith Wilkinson and Assoc., we use the McCroskey Vocational Quotient System (MVQS) for matching persons with jobs, which uses a unique and unparalleled approach. MVQS uses the measurement scales of the Handbook for Analyzing Jobs, Revised (HAJR) to define the 24 most vocationally significant categories referred to as worker traits. Then, these same worker traits are applied to worker abilities. The result is a list of occupations available in that market (USA - State/County, Canada - Provinces) within the worker’s abilities. MVQS is the most comprehensive and powerful Job-Person Matching System available in the US and Canada. The MVQS profiling process involves understanding (1) the demands of every occupation in a job market and (2) the abilities of a potential worker. MVQS uses a comprehensive database of job-demand profiles based on the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and ONET to represent different job markets. MVQS provides databases for all US states, counties, and Canadian province labor markets. Profiling also includes the worker’s job history.
To meet the second condition, MVQS helps the user develop an abilities profile based on objective information about the worker’s demonstrated and potential performance in vocationally significant worker traits. It uses the worker’s work experiences, medical conditions, educational achievements, and even their demonstrated activities of daily living, hobbies, or vocation. MVQS uses over 700 tests, both academic and mechanical, that can be used to evaluate the abilities of a potential worker."
Once the worker profile is ready and the job market (state, county, or province) is chosen, MVQS compares the worker’s measurements on each of the 24 vocationally significant worker traits with those of each job in the database. If the worker trait measure is greater than or equal to the occupation demand measure, MVQS goes to the next measure and compares it again. This process is repeated until the worker’s ability measure in one of the worker traits falls below the demand. If that happens, the occupation is excluded from the results. If the worker profile meets or exceeds the occupation demand in every one of the 24 worker traits, then that job is retained. MVQS then goes to the next occupation and starts all over again. It does this for every 1 of the nearly 13,000 occupations in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. When finished, the final list contains only occupations suitable for that worker in their geographic area.
The MVQS is Frye-Daubert ready! The MVQS Programs and their predecessors have been widely used and accepted for their helpfulness in determining individual employability and earning capacity in the US and Canada. These programs have been used by Vocational Experts, Rehabilitation Counselors, Vocational Evaluators, College Counselors, Rehabilitation Economists, Earning Analysts, and related professionals in more than 45 US States. They have long since met the Frye Test of General Acceptance (Frye v. US, 293 F. 1013, 1923) and Daubert Standards in Scientific Vocational Rehabilitation and Related Communities.
MVQS has proven to be reliable (provides consistent results), valid (measures what it is expected to measure) and has known acceptable error estimates (accuracy of predictions). Earnings Capacity estimates can be adjusted for different years (Wage Inflation), Geographic Location (ECLR) and Job Difficulty (VQ) to 2030.