Intro
When I’m called into a legal case as an expert witness, I’m not there to play defense or PR — I’m there to tell the truth. Usually, that truth isn’t about one bad decision. It’s about a pattern. A pattern that started long before a lawsuit.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe this:
What fails in the courtroom usually failed in the workplace first.
The Patterns You See from the Witness Stand
It’s easy to think lawsuits stem from freak accidents or outlier events. But more often, I see the same warning signs in nearly every funeral home case:
- Poor documentation
- Sloppy or nonexistent SOPs
- Untrained or overworked staff
- Leadership avoiding hard conversations
- Culture that tolerates burnout as “normal”
These aren’t legal problems. They’re organizational problems — the kind that quietly grow roots until one day a grieving family or a disgruntled former employee brings them to light.
The Patterns I See as a Professor and Consultant
In the classroom and in the field, the red flags aren’t subtle:
- Students afraid of the toxic culture they’re inheriting
- Embalmers burning out within five years
- Staff turnover ignored because “everyone’s replaceable”
There’s this unspoken rule in funeral service: Deal with it. Tough it out.
But here’s the truth: What we ignore becomes liability. What we tolerate becomes precedent.
At HCHO Resources, We Don’t Do Band-Aids
I started HCHO Resources because I was tired of watching good funeral homes lose great people — or worse, wind up in court for avoidable failures.
We work with funeral homes, attorneys, and educators to build organizations that are resilient, compliant, and rooted in accountability.
Here’s how we do it:
- Expert Witness Services – Clear, defensible insight for funeral-related litigation
- Organizational Audits – Culture, structure, leadership practices
- Retention Strategy & Employee Engagement – No fluff. Just tools that work
- Leadership Training – Grounded in real funeral service dynamics
- Crisis Management & Communication Support – For when it has hit the fan
Whether I’m in a courtroom or your conference room, I’m after the same thing: Fixing the systems that fail people.
Final Thought
Some of the best funeral professionals I’ve ever met walked away from this field—not because they didn’t care, but because no one listened.
Let’s not wait for a lawsuit to start doing things right.
Signature
Travis Newman, M.S.
Professor | Founder, HCHO Resources
Organizational Development & Expert Witness Services for the Funeral Profession