Expert witness fees add nearly $200K to cost of downtown library lawsuit Tuesday, May 11, 2021 An item that will be introduced at Wednesday’s Metro Council meeting dealing with the lawsuit over the downtown library helps illustrate why litigation is so costly. The parish attorney’s office and the library director are asking the council to approve a $195,000 increase to the contract of a Delaware engineering firm that has been serving as an expert adviser to the city-parish in the long-running legal drama. The contract for the structural engineering firm, Exponent Inc., was amended in 2018 from its original amount to $67,500. Now that the suit over construction problems with the library is proceeding to trial, the contract needs to be amended to cover the original expert’s reports and testimony through trial and to add an expert witness to testify as to total damages suffered by the library, documents submitted to the council show.