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51313-02859-When Technical Expertise Turns to Advocacy Dueling Technical Experts—Part II

Product Number: 51313-02859-SG
ISBN: 02859 2013 CP
Author: Mark Dromgool
Publication Date: 2013
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$20.00
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How can two or more experienced coatings or corrosion industry practitioners with years of history and vast amounts of knowledge in their specialist field look forensically at the same evidence connected for example with a coatings or lining failure and then stand up in Court as expert witnesses and present totally different causes mechanisms or consequences?

Is it because they compromise their independence and their technical expertise as fact-finders and fact-interpreters and instead become active campaigners for their client’s position? Do they assume adopt or morph into an advocacy role – a duty that is unashamedly populated by others such as barristers or lawyers?

The dueling between expert witnesses in litigation on coatings and corrosion disputes diminishes the ethical standing of true technical experts whose duty – as articulated in the Code of Conduct for Expert Witnesses in most legal jurisdictions – is to provide expertise knowledge and independent evidence of facts and opinion to the Court that it does not have of itself. This conflict of being retained and paid for by one party and yet having an overriding and singular duty to the Court is what many technical experts who are commissioned as expert witnesses fail to appreciate and cope with.

This paper presents some examples of the sort of dueling that technical experts in disputes resort to as they transform into hired guns.

Keywords

Expert witness advocacy independence litigation forensic interpretations ethics.

 

How can two or more experienced coatings or corrosion industry practitioners with years of history and vast amounts of knowledge in their specialist field look forensically at the same evidence connected for example with a coatings or lining failure and then stand up in Court as expert witnesses and present totally different causes mechanisms or consequences?

Is it because they compromise their independence and their technical expertise as fact-finders and fact-interpreters and instead become active campaigners for their client’s position? Do they assume adopt or morph into an advocacy role – a duty that is unashamedly populated by others such as barristers or lawyers?

The dueling between expert witnesses in litigation on coatings and corrosion disputes diminishes the ethical standing of true technical experts whose duty – as articulated in the Code of Conduct for Expert Witnesses in most legal jurisdictions – is to provide expertise knowledge and independent evidence of facts and opinion to the Court that it does not have of itself. This conflict of being retained and paid for by one party and yet having an overriding and singular duty to the Court is what many technical experts who are commissioned as expert witnesses fail to appreciate and cope with.

This paper presents some examples of the sort of dueling that technical experts in disputes resort to as they transform into hired guns.

Keywords

Expert witness advocacy independence litigation forensic interpretations ethics.

 

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