Daniel Ryan & Noel Matthews look at mitigating the costs of expert evidence
On 8 May 2009, Lord Justice Jackson published an interim report in his review of English civil litigation costs. Among a number of wide-ranging issues discussed, the report set out a number of suggestions regarding the use of expert witnesses in civil litigation. In particular, focusing on “the costs of expert evidence and how those costs might be mitigated, without impairing the quality of such evidence”.
In this article we consider those suggestions and the issues they raise from our perspective as expert witnesses (principally concerned with the quantum of damages) and also consider drivers of expert witness costs from our own experiences. In particular we consider the following topics discussed in the Interim Report; the use of single joint experts; timing of permission for experts; sequential exchange of reports; attendance at courts; “hot tubs”; bifurcation of quantum and liability.
Single joint experts
Lord Justice Jackson notes that
