Columnist

The future direction of expert witness services

Our teams are regularly called upon by personal injury and medical negligence lawyers, acting on behalf of both claimants and defendants, to provide expert witness statements and evidence at trial.  

It’s an area that continues to evolve, and I believe we will see a move to more single joint expert instructions in the Courts.

It’s a change I personally support, because I think it often delivers better outcomes.

Ultimately, when you’re acting as an expert witness for only one client, or single joint expert, your duty is to the Court itself.

With single joint expert instructions, you are looking at things from a truly neutral angle.

As Courts constantly push towards reducing litigation cost and timescales, and generally try to narrow areas of conflict, the attraction towards using single joint experts grows.

While we often disagree with our counterparts in relation to what a deputyship might cost to manage, over time that disparity has reduced, and many differences are able to be resolved in a joint call. 

With that in mind, the deputyship is an area that appears ripe and ready for more single joint expert instructions.   

At EMG Solicitors, we currently undertake a real mix of claimant and defendant work.

We are seeing significant growth in our claimant instructions, due to firms – who might have previously used their internal deputyship team as expert – now choosing to refer the matter externally, to ensure their impartiality is not called into question. 

We’ve worked incredibly hard to build a knowledge base that helps us effectively analyse our case history and inform the recommendations we make.

This means we can be sure our evidence will be robust and well-reasoned, should the matter proceed to trial.

Emma Gaudern is chief executive of EMG Solicitors

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