The Judicial Office has announced new rules on instructing experts in family courts, which aim to reduce the number of expert witnesses who have to give evidence.
The new rules and practice direction, which come into force on 31 January 2013, change the threshold for permission to put expert evidence before the court from 'reasonably required' to 'necessary'.
In children proceedings the same test applies to permission to instruct an expert and for a child to be examined for the purpose of providing expert evidence.
In reaching a decision on whether to grant permission, the court will consider:
- whether the evidence could be provided by another source, such as one of the parties or professionals already involved in the case
- the issues to be addressed by the expert evidence and the questions to be put to the expert; and
- the cost and impact on the court timetable of obtaining the evidence
Read the full announcement and key changes
Read the new practice direction (PDF)
New templates for practitioners
We have developed a suite of templates to help practitioners who instruct experts in family and children court proceedings, in line with the revised Practice Direction 25, issued on 31 January 2013.
Download the templates