Expert Witness Blog

Expert insights, legal technology trends, and best practices for working with expert witnesses

Should Experts Ever Approach the Decision-Maker Directly Over a Fundamental Disagreement?

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Nearly every experienced expert has felt the pull, at some point, to bypass the process and explain a critical technical point directly to the tribunal. This piece examines why that instinct almost always deserves respect but not action, and lays out the proper channels that achieve the same goal without sacrificing procedural fairness.

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When Expert Collaboration Helps the Case - and When It Backfires

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Collaboration between opposing experts is usually treated as an unambiguous virtue, but not every concession made in a joint conference reflects genuine technical agreement. This piece draws the line between conceding a point because the analysis warrants it and conceding ground because disagreement starts to feel socially uncomfortable, and offers a practical test for telling the two apart in real time.

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How Often Should Opposing Experts Actually Meet and Confer?

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Most joint expert conferences happen exactly once, near the end of a case, after both positions have already hardened. This piece questions that convention and lays out a structured, milestone-based alternative, along with the safeguards needed to make more frequent contact between opposing experts safe rather than risky.

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Using Early Case Management Meetings to Narrow Technical Issues

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Most of the waste in expert evidence happens before anyone notices it: reports built around the wrong questions, scopes that never quite line up. This piece makes the case for a short, disciplined early meeting that narrows the technical issues before either expert starts drafting, and shows what it should and shouldn't cover.

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What Happens When Opposing Experts Receive Conflicting Legal Guidance

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Two competent, independent experts can reach sharply different conclusions on the same question, not because either did flawed work, but because they were given different legal assumptions to build on. This piece looks at how conflicting guidance to opposing experts quietly undermines comparability, and what experts, counsel, and tribunals can each do about it.

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Defining Counsel's Proper Role in the Joint Expert Report Process

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Litigators disagree about what their role actually is during a joint expert report process, and the confusion has real consequences for how much weight a tribunal gives the result. This piece breaks counsel's proper role into three stages, before, during, and after the experts' conference, and shows exactly where useful support ends and counterproductive interference begins.

Unpaid and Done Waiting: Levers to Pull to Collect What You're Owed

When attorneys don't pay expert witness invoices, what are your options? Learn practical strategies to document, escalate, recover unpaid fees, and protect future engagements.

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Why Joint Expert Reports Work Best When Counsel Steps Back

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - Joint expert reports are supposed to capture a candid, expert-to-expert exchange. Too often they read like a document negotiated by lawyers instead. This piece looks at where legitimate legal support ends, where substantive interference begins, and why the best joint statements are the ones counsel never touches.

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How Expert Witnesses Can Protect Their Independence From the First Phone Call

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - The first phone call with prospective counsel looks like a formality, but it is the single highest-leverage moment for protecting expert independence. The questions asked, the boundaries set, and the language used to describe the case in that first conversation quietly determine how much room an expert will have to push back later, if it's ever needed.

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Recognising When a Legal Team Is Shaping Rather Than Instructing an Expert Opinion

Category: Communication Between Experts, Decision-Makers and Counsel - A nagging feeling that something has shifted in a report over successive drafts is usually right. This is a practical checklist for recognizing when a legal team has moved from instructing an expert to quietly shaping their opinion, and exactly what to do about it, from documentation to a direct, professional conversation.