Regarding your column describing the trend for using economists as expert witnesses in the US legal system (Inside Business, January 2), litigation expert witnesses in England and Wales were also once “hired guns” who would blithely write reports asserting that the party who instructed them was unquestionably in the right.
Then in 1999 the civil procedure rules transformed the law by declaring that the primary obligation of every expert was to help the court.
Despite the occasional lapse, standards today are impeccable.
Professor Dominic Regan
Head of Knowledge
Frenkel Topping Group,
Salford, Manchester, UK
