Expert Witness Service

Experts play an important role in litigation. An expert’s opinion often determines if a case is pursued, and courts rely increasingly on experts to help them to understand areas which are outside the judge’s own knowledge and expertise.
Consulting Services routinely support researchers from the University of Oxford in undertaking expert witness consultancy in patent litigation, medical negligence and, occasionally, criminal cases.

Benefits of undertaking expert witness consultancy

Expert witness consultancy can be very rewarding and potential benefits include:

• Financially rewarding: expert witness work on patent litigation cases is often one of the most well paid types of consultancy.
• Professional development: our consultants have often reported that expert witness work is intellectually stimulating and challenging, and they learn a great deal from doing it.
• Repeat work: Expert witness work can raise your profile in both the academic and commercial community, and you are more likely to be approached about undertaking additional expert witness work in the future.

Guidance for undertaking expert witness work

It is important that anyone who is approached to act as an expert understands their duties and responsibilities. We have created some Guidance Notes for staff who are thinking of undertaking expert witness consultancy work. Researchers who have been approached about expert witness work should contact the Consulting Services team via the contact us button, to discuss further how we can help to arrange this for you.