Litigation

Missouri Lawyers: New Expert Rule, Effective January, 2009

By Evan Schaeffer

There's a new expert rule for Missouri lawyers, effective January, 2009. The change was recently announced in an order issued by the Missouri Supreme Court. See particularly Rule 56.01, which outlines an amended expert interrogatory--

(A) A party may through interrogatories require any other party to identify each person whom the other party expects to call as an expert witness at trial by providing:

(i) Such expert?s name, address, occupation, place of employment and qualifications to give an opinion. If the expert?s curriculum vitae contains this information, the information may be provided by attaching a copy of the expert?s curriculum vitae to the interrogatory answers;

(ii) The general nature of the subject matter on which the expert is expected to testify;

(iii) A list of the expert?s publications with sufficient information to permit the publications to be located, including, the title, name of publisher, and date of each publication;

(iv) court name, cause number, parties? names and the name and address of the retaining law firm for all cases in which the expert has testified in court, testified by deposition or within the past forty-eight months has given a report pursuant to Rule 26(a)(2)(B) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure;

(v) the amount the retaining lawyer, the retaining law firm and the retaining party in the aggregate paid the expert and the expert?s consulting firm during the past forty-eight months;

(vi) The terms of the compensation agreement with the expert, including the amount to be paid to the expert; and                                     
(vii) The expert?s hourly deposition fee.

Subparts (iii), (iv), and (v) are new. The amended Rule 56.01(b)(4)(B) also states that an expert must produce, at the beginning of the expert's deposition, "[a]ll documents prepared, reviewed or received" by the expert in the case.

Full post as published by The Illinois Trial Practice Blog on August 07, 2008 (boomark / email).