Civil Justice Council revises guidance on instructing experts in civil claims

The Civil Justice Council has issued revised guidance for instructing experts to give evidence in civil claims.

The purpose of the review was to examine the guidance in light of the Jackson Review and the decision in Factortame (No 8) [2003] QB 381.

The Master of the Rolls, who chairs the CJC, announced the review last year. A working party was chaired by council member John Pickering.

The introduction to the guidance says: “The purpose of this guidance is to assist litigants, those instructing experts and experts in understanding best practice with regard to compliance with Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR or the Rules) and the overriding objective.

“Experts and those who instruct them should ensure they are familiar with CPR 35 and its associated practice direction (PD or PD35).”

The guidance says that more specifically, it is important to have regard to the objectives of paragraph 1.4 of the practice direction, namely to:

• Encourage the exchange of early and full information about the expert issues involved in the perspective legal claim.
• Enable the parties to avoid or reduce the scope of litigation by agreeing the whole or part of an expert issue before commencement of proceedings; and
• Support the efficient management of proceedings where litigation cannot be avoided.

The document also calls on experts and those instructing them to be aware that some cases may be ‘specialist proceedings’ where specific rules may apply, some cases may be governed by protocols and some courts who have published their own guidelines as supplements to the CPR.

The guidance deals with areas relating to both the pre and post issue of court proceedings.

The new version of guidance is to be published in the White Book shortly and will replace the existing CJC Protocol.

More information and a copy of the revised guidance can be found here.