[brief] THE TRIAL COURT CORRECTLY RULED THAT PLAINTIFF’S CLAIM FOR PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE AGAINST URBAN MUST BE SUPPORTED WITH AN EXPERT OPINION AS TO THE GOVERNING STANDARD OF CARE.  In an action against a professional, New Jersey law requires expert testimony from a member of that professional’s community in order to establish a deviation from the standard of care.  See Rosenberg v. Cahill, 99 N.J. 318, 325 (1985); F. G. v. McDonnell, 291 N.J. Super. 262, 272 (App. Div. 1996), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 150 N.J. 550 (1997); State v. Frost, 242 N.J. Super. 601, 615 (App. Div. 1990); Walker Rogge, Inc. v Chelsea Title & Guarantee Co., 222 N.J. Super. 363, 376 (App. Div. 1988), rev’d on other grounds, 116 N.J. 517 (1989).  This is so because a jury should not be allowed to speculate, without expert testimony, in an area where lay persons have insufficient knowledge or experience.  Kelly v. Berlin, 300 N.J. Super. 256, 268 (App. Div. 1997).  Without such evidence, a plaintiff cannot sustain the burden of establishing a prima facie case of negligence against a professional.  The requirement of predicating claims against a professional with standard of care expert testimony is memorialized within the New Jersey Model Civil Jury Charge governing professional liability claims.  New Jersey Model Jury Charge 5.52B provides as follows:  Negligence is conduct that falls below a standard of care required by law for the protection of persons or property from foreseeable risks of harm.  In a suit against an engineer, jurors normally are not qualified to supply the standard of care by which to measure the defendant's conduct.  Based upon their common knowledge alone, without technical training, jurors usually cannot know what conduct constitutes standard engineering practice.  Therefore, ordinarily, when an engineer is charged with negligence, the standard of practice by which his/her conduct is to be judged must be furnished by expert testimony; that is to say, by the testimony of persons who by knowledge, training or experience are deemed qualified to testify and to express their opinions on standard engineering practice.  As jurors, you should not speculate or guess about the standards which the average engineer should follow.  In a case such as this, you as jurors must determine what is standard engineering practice from the testimony of the expert witnesses who have been heard in this case.  After hearing such testimony and deciding what standard engineering practice is in the circumstances of this case, you as jurors must then determine whether the defendant has complied with or whether defendant has departed from that standard of care.  If you find that the defendant has complied with this standard, he/she is not liable to the plaintiff, regardless of the result of his/her work.  On the other hand, if you find that the defendant has departed from this standard of care, and that such departure has resulted in injury or damage, then you should find the defendant liable for his/her negligence.  Accordingly, in the present matter, the trial court correctly concluded that plaintiff cannot establish a prima facie case of professional malpractice against [...] in the absence of an expert opinion articulating the standard of care governing [...]’s provision of services and a deviation from that standard.  III.