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Category: Expert Witnesses

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Irrelevant or Misleading?

In Long v IS Industry Fund Ptd Ltd (No 2) [2020] NSWSC 1541, the NSW Supreme Court addressed complaints of irrelevance and prejudice levelled at an expert

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Subject Matter Experts

The Status Quo ‘Subject Matter Experts’ (SMEs) are given this title within their own institutions to refer to individuals with particular expertise in subject matter

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Common Mistakes in Expert Witness Reports

What are the common mistakes that can make a report less effective and, at worst, inadmissible in court? This article examines some typical issues that arise when lawyers engage experts, and how to avoid them.

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Guide to Concurrent Evidence in New South Wales

As concurrent evidence is now the norm in civil trials in New South Wales, it is important for lawyers to be aware of the process, and how best to manage the expert witnesses involved, to ensure things run smoothly and that the best outcome possible is achieved.

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Top 3 Tips from Bicknell v Pickard

Introduction Bicknell v Pickard [1] centered around to what extent the plaintiff’s psychiatric illnesses were caused by a motorcycle collision between the plaintiff and the defendant,

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Can Anyone Be an Expert Witness?

The Honourable Justice Chesterman once defined the role of the expert witness as: “… to educate or inform the court about the relevant aspects of the witness’s specialty to enable the court itself to access evidence, which, without that tuition, the court would be unable to do”. In most circumstances, the court does not admit mere opinion into evidence, as indicated by the opinion rule in s76 of Evidence Act (Cth) 1995 […]

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The Problem with ‘Ultimate Issue’ Questions

When preparing a letter of instruction for an expert witness, it is recommended that legal practitioners abstain from directly asking experts ‘ultimate issue’ legal questions. This is due to the risk that the expert witness’s answer will be deemed as being beyond their expert knowledge and be inadmissible, by virtue of not falling under the Expert Exception Rule in Section 79 of the Evidence Act.

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Hottubbing Experts in Australia

  Colloquially known as hot-tubbing, the practice of concurrent evidence is gaining significant traction in Australian jurisdictions. In fact, the New South Wales Law Reform

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