Attendance of Lawyers at Experts’ Meeting

The Clinical Disputes Forum has changed its mind about the desirability of the presence of lawyers at meetings of experts. The original draft guidelines recommended that normally lawyers should not be present whilst the revised guidelines now provide that ‘unless the lawyers for all parties agree, or the court orders otherwise, lawyers for all parties will attend the discussions of experts. If lawyers do attend such discussions, they should not normally intervene save to answer questions put to them by the experts or advise them on the law’. In reaching this guideline the extra cost of the lawyers’ attendance was set against the value of avoiding inconclusive meetings and in particular that of the lawyers’ understanding of the expert issues. Further lawyers should be able to answer questions and could, and should, intervene if the experts seem to be applying the wrong legal tests.