To be fair expert witnesses get a few hundred an hour in compensation for preparing plus actually testifying. That being said in the grand scheme of things it's hardly a fortune, but compared to an average professor salary it's probably a decent bonus.
I was tangentially involved in a major healthcare medical error lawsuit.
The physicians being called as expert witnesses had fee schedules that were in the range of $2,000 an hour for testimony, $1,200 an hour for document review.
Without googling I’m betting that political science professors make less money than physicians, especially if those experts were surgeons. If your expert testimony required billionaire expert witnesses I’d bet their hour fees would be substantially more than a surgeons.
To be fair the median expert witness retainer is $2,000 and their fee may be a few hundred dollars per hour.
So let’s say this professor was getting paid even 100% of their salary on this one case, that is pretty meager fee to act inappropriately or commit the crime of perjury…which is the context of the university claiming their is a conflict and they would only permit the professor to act as a witness against the government if they don’t receive compensation. Even a fee matching their annual salary is meager fee in context of an act that would result in sanctions and inability to ever act as a expert witness again and/or termination of their non-tenured professorship as well as the professional humiliation.
Most tenured professors can negotiate roughly one day a week doing consulting. In my field, the profs consulted for pharma and were sometimes compensated in shares. At least, before they retired on their proceeds.
To be fair expert witnesses get a few hundred an hour in compensation for preparing plus actually testifying. That being said in the grand scheme of things it's hardly a fortune, but compared to an average professor salary it's probably a decent bonus.