Maintaining Independence – Are Legal Advisors Over Cautious When Working With Experts?

Maintaining an expert's independence is of utmost importance. All participants in an arbitration or court proceedings know that a situation where an expert's independence is being questioned should be avoided. However, what is a reasonable level of caution for legal advisors to hold when working with experts?

The use of and interactions with experts can vary between litigation and arbitration and between jurisdictions. More often in court proceedings, experts are in a situation where the legal advisers want to limit direct access to clients to mitigate the perceived risk of potential challenges to the expert's independence.

A cautious approach is understandable and often taken to ensure that the expert's opinions and analysis remain unbiased and objective. Legal advisers may have concerns that direct interaction between experts and clients could lead to inadvertent influence, conflicts of interest, or compromises in independence. There are certainly instances