12 FEATURE
www.lawgazette.co.uk
23 June 2014
Feeling the pressure
Radical reform of funding and compliance has placed the relationship between practitioners and expert
witnesses under strain. Grania Langdon-Down reports
T
he Jackson and legal aid reforms are having a sig- nificant impact on the use of expert evidence across the civil, family and criminal courts. The Ministry of Justice
and the judiciary see controlling the use of experts as a critical fac-
tor in reducing costs and delays. New guidance instructing experts in civil litigation and new stan- dards for experts in family proceedings relating to children are being formulated. But do the changes in costs budgeting, propor- tionality and funding which affect expert evidence risk undermining both justice and the relationships between practitioners and experts? The threat of harsh sanctions for missed deadlines is clearly put- ting pressure on how the two work together. A specialist section of the College of Occupational
Therapists recently flagged up concerns that solic- itors – both claimant and defendant – are send- ing out source material (such as draft reports and witness statements) but asking the expert either not to list or refer to the material in their report, or to remove dates of reports and witness statements to comply with tough, post-Jackson court deadlines. The section’s med- ico-legal forum warned its members that these demands are ‘incom- patible’ with the Civil Procedure Rules and
could damage their professional independence and integrity. The forum’s chair Alison Somek has acted as an
expert witness for more than 30 years and is chief executive of medico-legal consultancy Somek & Associates, which provides expert witnesses for clinical negligence and personal injury litigation. She says three barristers have endorsed the forum’s guidance which, she stresses, is to raise awareness and not be a blanket ‘no’, as each report needs to be considered on its merits. It recommends members discuss concerns with their instructing solicitor. ‘We really do sympathise with the pressure prac- titioners are under,’ she says. ‘We understand that a draft report doesn’t have to be served and we don’t have a problem with removing it if we have seen the final copy. ‘But because solicitors are paranoid about miss-
ing deadlines they are asking us to make these changes in advance of receiving these documents. Old hands like me are prepared to stand our ground but I know others who are doing it.’ Mark Solon, managing director of expert wit-
the expertise but do not have a backlog of work or expectation of fees that some of our existing or past experts have had —Geoff Owen, Greenwoods
We need a new generation of experts who have
ness trainers Bond Solon, says experts should seek guidance if they feel they are being asked to do something inappropriate, because their first duty is to the court, not their instruct- ing solicitor. ‘It may scupper future work with that particular solici- tor,’ he acknowledges, ‘but it is better to check or say “no” as it is the experts’ professional rep- utation on the line.’ This is a ‘timescale’ issue, says Stephen Webber, chair of the Soci-
ety of Clinical Injury Lawyers and head of medical negligence at Cardiff-based Hugh James. Continued on page 14
EXPERT WITNESSES
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36