The relationship between doctors and lawyers is based on three 'F' words: Faith, Fear and Finance. Let me expand on those, based entirely on my personal observations – without any tedious references to learned medical or legal journals.
The need for faith is obvious, or should be. Doctors need faith in their legal advisers, whether it be for conveyancing or divorce (probably the two commonest uses of legal advice). Lawyers need almost as much faith when they are ill and require the services of a doctor.
This cosy relationship cannot continue as the second 'F' word comes in: fear. We, the doctors, have a healthy fear of being sued for our errors, although that is not – or should not be – why we try and get it right. The whole process of being sued has become even more tedious and unpleasant. In the 'good old days' our professional indemnity companies took over and dealt with everything.
Since the hospitals have taken over the job of answering legal claims, however, the whole thing has become a seemingly inefficient and over-lengthy mess. The hospitals now employ local legal firms, often with relatively little experience in the field and LOUIS DELISS MB, ChB, FRCS outlines the relationship between the lawyer and the doctor and between the lawyer and the medical expert usually with no doctors on their staff.
Hope the doctor gets it right
The fear also works the other way: most lawyers hope their doctors will get it right. Their fear of things going wrong tends to out-weigh the desire to see legal action bring the arrogant doctor down to earth!
The final 'F' word – finance – is always a difficult area but it should not be. Finance in both the medical and legal worlds is rarely discussed openly and at an early stage. Lawyers and doctors each tend to think that the other is charging excessively. The doctors feel that the lawyers delay paying as long as possible and the lawyers feel that the doctors expect payment much too early in the case. Both professions believe their client/patient has better things to worry about than money, and if not will readily supply a cause for such anxiety.
Define 'expert'
So much for the relationship between lawyers and doctors: but what about 'expert witnesses'? Lawyers often request reports from doctors on the medical aspects of a client's case in the belief that they are 'experts'. However, despite the claim by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss that: "Expert witnesses are a crucial resource; without them we (the Judges) could not do our job", there are few useful definitions of an expert.
The Collins English Dictionary gives: Expert = a person who has extensive skill or knowledge, which is both unhelpful and vague in my opinion.
The Society of Expert Witnesses doesn’t help much either and is also rather vague. It says an expert is anyone with knowledge or experience of a particular field or discipline beyond what is expected of a layman.
The British Medical Association has a slightly better definition: "An expert witness is a person who is qualified by his or her knowledge or experience to give an opinion on a particular issue(s) to a court."
Wikipedia does best: "An 'expert' is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public."