Chris Pamplin looks at how greater exposure to litigants in person is also exposing expert witnesses to consumer law
Until recently, it was rare for an expert witness to contract direct with a litigant. Indeed, having a lawyer as a buffer between you and the litigant is generally a very good thing, not least when your independence leads you to express opinions the litigant doesn’t like. However, the savage cuts in public funding and restrictions on cost recovery mean that courts are seeing a massive increase in the number of litigants in person. As a consequence, more experts are being asked to work direct with “consumers”, and it opens a whole new can of worms.
Consumer law landscape
The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/3134) (CCR 2013) and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA 2015) have ushered in some significant changes to the law in relation to consumer contracts for the supply of goods and services. Experts who are instructed by litigants in person, and create contracts with them, need to be aware of the new consumer law landscape.
