Expert Reports: The Triumph Of Form Over Substance?

It is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security that the formal requirements for an expert report, as set out in CPR 35.10, Practice Direction 35 and the Guidance for the Instruction of Experts in Civil Claims to which it refers (PD 35.1), matter far less than what an expert actually says.

True it is that many experts fail to summarise the range of opinion rather than just expressing their own (PD 35.3.2(6)) and this is often overlooked in the litigation. How often have you seen an expert set out the substance of all material oral instructions they had received, rather than a brief (if any) mention of the written instructions? CPR 35.10(3) requires them to do set out both but when was the last time someone objected that an expert had not?