The past 5 years have seen numerous court judgments and changes to rules and procedures that relate to the work of expert psychiatric witnesses in the British Isles. This article outlines these changes, pointing out their implications for the expert witness, and highlights pertinent judgments in over 100 court and tribunal cases.

In legal parlance, a ‘witness’ must have personal knowledge of the facts that form the basis of their inference or opinion. However, unlike an ordinary or a professional witness, an expert witness can provide opinion evidence, an exception to this doctrine. The evolution of the role of an expert witness or a skilled witness (in Scotland) is outlined in this clinical reflection.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ report CR193 details the responsibilities of psychiatrists who provide expert evidence to courts and tribunals. This brief commentary describes the rewards and challenges of expert witness work, the author's role as the College's Lead for Expert Witnesses, and importance of CR193 for expert psychiatric witnesses.

Civil rights attorneys challenging laws restricting transgender rights and access to healthcare often encounter anti-transgender medical experts in litigation at various stages. The experts often maintain dubious credentials in the relevant area of medical or scientific expertise which presents a challenge that undermines equitable access to justice by introducing pseudo-science into court proceedings. This commentary will discuss the phenomenon and propose a normative path forward.

In 2011, lawyers for the Chevron Corporation filed a civil suit against an aqueous geochemist under federal racketeering and corruption laws. They claimed that the geochemist and her colleagues had ghostwritten significant portions of a report attributed to a court-appointed expert in Ecuador, although the accusation was subsequently withdrawn. The original case addressed the environmental impact of Chevron’s operations in lowland Ecuador, the subject of a $9 billion judgment against the oil company. This article treats legal transcripts and depositions as examples of life writing to examine the contribution of experts to environmental litigation. It adds to recent scholarship on the instability of scientific authorship by comparing different forms of ghostwriting. Whereas the pharmaceutical industry employs ghostwriters to conceal the potentially harmful consequences of its products, the scientists contributing to the case against Chevron sought to make the company’s environmental impacts visible. The company undermined confidence in the legal proceedings in Ecuador by criticizing the experts for the plaintiffs rather than their data, preventing people whose lives and livelihoods have been affected by oil contamination from collecting the judgment against Chevron. This corporate strategy may have a chilling effect on the willingness of environmental scientists and other expert witnesses to provide evidence against powerful corporations. There is a need for better accounting of scientific research undertaken in support of environmental litigation, especially given the high stakes of legal contests like this one, in which corporate fortunes, human lives, and the fate of the environment are contingent on their technical expertise.

The expert witness practice of psychiatrists is under constant scrutiny by the courts and, in the UK, the General Medical Council, as well as within appraisal and revalidation as part of a doctor's overall practice. Regulation and appraisal of expert witness practice must address not only technical competence, including demonstration of a real understanding of the interface between medicine and law, but also ethical probity, including in respect of bias, which is the most challenging appraisal focus. In psychiatry, there is much room for ‘values expression’, and therefore bias, in the offering of expert opinion. This article first describes various legal and psychological definitions of bias; then addresses the sources and routes to expression of bias within expert witness practice, viewed legally, psychologically and neuroscientifically. Finally, it proposes ways in which inevitable bias can be minimised by the individual practitioner.

Risk assessments by expert witnesses appointed by the Family Court of Australia (FCA), and as informed by findings of any investigations by police and child protection agencies, play a critical role in the adjudication of custody disputes involving allegations of child sex abuse. This study focuses on the contribution made by these independent advisors as documented in the FCA trial transcripts of a sample of 62 such cases in the period 2012–2016. Analysis reveals that those responsible for assessing risk shared a concern for an emerging pattern of applicant responsibility for systems abuse, in conjunction with emotional abuse, as a significant child protection issue. It also raises issues for the Court when there are multiple risk assessments coming from experts who bring different disciplinary and organisational perspectives. As an exploratory study, the implications of these findings need to be viewed through the lens of protecting the best interests of the child.