12 September 2014
No cracking & hot-tubbing; intestacy law & Inheritance Act reforms & a lowdown on the update
“CALM DOWN DEAR”
New guidance on the instruction of experts in civil cases has just been published by the Civil Justice Council and then republished in revised form. However, do not panic because it will not come formally into force until this autumn when it will replace the protocol on experts which currently forms part of CPR PD35.
The guidance, like PD35, usefully points out that while permission from the court to rely on an expert or call them to give oral evidence is required, an expert can generally be instructed by a party without any permission. Nevertheless, many practitioners habitually go after court permission to instruct. And as to what is actually new:
- a section on sequential exchange of reports suggesting that in this situation the defendant’s report should usually be produced in response to the claimant’s report;
- where a solicitor sends additional documents to an expert before finalising of their report, the expert is to be told whether any witness statements or expert reports sent are updated
