Expert Witness

• High Level Safety Planning
• Technicalities surround Risk assessment and intended safety measures  
• Safety Assurance / Maintenance, Inspections and Testing 
• Safety Justification of complex process / plant 
• Design of work processes or tasks
• Design / Operation of complex systems 
• Design of equipment – safety specific and/or highly automated 

An Expert Witness’ primary role is to lay out the relevant technical things that the adjudicating party (be it a panel of Judges, a single Judge or a Judge and Jury) would need to consider to come to a balanced judgement, in non-technical language that is accessible to all within the court, irrespective of experience or knowledge. This is to be presented neutrally - without bias toward any of the parties involved.  

 An Expert Witness is entitled to present an opinion based on their experience in a given area and relevant evidence 

The Expert Witness does not provide direction to judgement, the Expert Witness’ role is to rapidly bring the court to a sufficient level of understanding of a technical area within their expertise, to aid them making a fair judgement. 

• High Level Safety Planning in multiple, high-consequence hazard environments 
• Functional Safety Design, Analysis and Justification 
• Deterministic and Probabilistic Safety Analysis and Justification of complex systems
• Safety led design of Safety Instrumented Systems including programmable equipment

Technical suitability of;

• Hazard Identification methods
• Risk assessment methods and sentencing of outcomes 
• Proposed safety measures implemented
• Actual safety measures implemented 
• Plans for Safety Assurance / Maintenance, Inspections and Testing 
•  Plans for Safety Monitoring and Reaction to Events 
• Safety Justification documentation

There are certain tracks within the civil law arrangements that Expert Witnesses aren’t usually involved in – the Small Claims track, but we can be involved in other tracks as deemed necessary or appropriate by the legal professionals involved.

We can be instructed by the Claimant, the Defendant or both. 

We do not take on work supporting Criminal trials at this time, or work outside of the jurisdiction of England and Wales 

Legal professionals engage Expert Witnesses as appropriate to their needs – on a one off basis for a given case, usually based on a pre-agreed time / cost basis. 

As a result of the above, an engagement would start with a need to know a particular answer to a particular technical question that the case relies on – this could be fairly open-ended, particularly tightly scoped or somewhere in between, depending on the requirements of the particular case. We would work with the instructing solicitors to understand their needs and agree a firm set of instructions and the expected outcomes. The outcomes could include: 

• Delivery of a structured written Report based on firm, reasoned understanding and a body of evidence at an appropriate standard 
• Working with solicitors informally as required pre-court to aid understanding 
• Answering any technical questions from other Expert Witnesses involved, including Hot Tubbing and/or use of a Single Joint Expert
• Court appearances (if needed) for cross-examination against the Report 

Absolute discretion is assured - noting that much of our work in this field is covered by client-professional privilege or as part of active proceedings – the signing of a mutually-binding Non-Disclosure Agreement specific to the instruction is expected by default.