Personal injury and clinical negligence solicitors can get stronger expert reports back sooner by sharing three things at the outset: precise instructions, complete medical records and the court timetable.
That is the message from TLA Medicolegal, which manages the medicolegal practices of leading consultants and sees daily where communication between lawyers and experts breaks down.
These frustrations are felt widely, with a 2023 Bond Solon survey of 581 expert witnesses finding that 68% had been instructed on a case with insufficient or incomplete materials. The survey, run with the Law Gazette also found that 62% had felt pressured by very tight timescales.
There was a time when a solicitor would simply ring a consultant, outline the case and agree a fee. The two then stayed in direct contact until the case concluded. As caseloads grew and more work passed through agencies, that direct line was often lost and many experts became several steps removed from the instructing lawyer.
The two professions also work to very different rhythms, with a solicitor running a case from the desk during office hours. Most experts are practising consultants with clinics and operating lists who write reports in the evenings and at weekends. An instruction that goes quiet for six months then returns with a four-week deadline is hard to fit around patients.
Fiona Morrison, Director and Co-founder of TLA Medicolegal, says: "Experts want to give solicitors exactly what they need but they can only answer the questions they are asked. Too often a report comes back and the solicitor finds certain points have not been covered when the expert was never asked to address them in the first place.
"Our experts tell us the same things time and again that they need solicitors to be clear about what they want, send the records once and in order and share the key dates from day one."
Precise instructions come first because setting out every issue the expert should address means nobody has to go back for more later.
Records are the second frustration as many experts receive them in dribs and drabs, with each new batch sent alongside everything supplied before. When updated records are sent sporadically or added to the previous bundle, someone then has to sift thousands of pages to find what is new. Imaging causes similar problems when an expert is told scans are unavailable only to find the other side's expert has commented on them.
Timing is the third issue because the court sets the timetable early, from filing reports to settlement meetings and the joint statement, yet those dates often never reach the expert. TLA suggests sharing the full timetable and asking for the report four to six weeks before it must be filed. That leaves room for questions instead of a report landing two days before the deadline.
Fiona says: "TLA was set up so that experts and solicitors could communicate properly again. Our case managers know what each side needs and when a conversation would help and putting the expert and the solicitor on the phone to each other or having a short conference call to bring everybody up to speed. It saves time, it saves cost and it produces better expert reports."
To discuss instructing a TLA expert, contact Fiona Morrison at fiona@tla-medicolegal.com.