There is a bad pun in the title and the reader should be forgiven for not realising that this is an article about experts.

In case the reader does not get it -- ex is 'late' and 'spurt' is a drip under pressure.It is an overworked joke which serves to show only that old ones are not necessarily the best.

There is actually a grain of truth to be found within the pun, however.

The day of the 'hired gun' expert is indeed now dead and gone.

If attention was paid to the siren voices which railed against the civil justice reforms both before and after their introduction, it might well have been believed that, in the brave new world of civil litigation, the expert was an endangered species.

There might be expert life under the reforms but not as we knew it before.

Indeed, six months into the reforms, I heard a senior member of the bar express the view that they were unworkable, in particular in relation to the provisions as to experts, and would founder accordingly.

He has certainly been proved wrong.

One of the most striking improvements for which the reforms are responsible is the fresh approach which the courts and practitioners alike now take to the contribution which experts make to the achieving of the overriding objective.Impartiality, pleaseIt is worth remembering that there has not been such a revolution as some would have you think.

It is true that in his final report, Lord Woolf stated that experts needed to demonstrate their impartiality when reporting for the purpose of court proceedings.

The Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR) are designed to achieve precisely this.

Prior to the CPR, the expert's duties had been defined by the courts, notably in the judgment of Cresswell J in National Justice Compania Naviera S A v Prudential Assurance Co Ltd (The Ikarian Reefer) [1993] 2 Lloyds Rep 68.The expert's approach to his duties to the court under the CPR is, in fact, hardly distinguishable from the definition of his duties expounded in The Ikarian Reefer.

If the expert's obligation was to assist the court with objective and unbiased opinion, has there really been any material change? The answer has to be that there has.

The old approach to experts was a substantial contributory factor to the creation of the mischiefs of cost and delay.

Experts were engaged in an investigative role and asked to provide the material to support the claimant's contention and without proper instruction, they were unable to adjust their position to that of the impartial commentator.

Very little regard was paid to the cost of engagement relative to the value of the claim.

Experts were over-indulged in the context of the fixing of trials.

It cannot be said that practitioners were solely responsible for these aberrations because the courts permitted them to happen and this is the reason why the court's duty to restrict expert evidence is the first principle to be found in CPR part 35.

Restrict?The restriction of expert evidence is not to be interpreted as stiflement but does create an obligation to limit the evidence to that which is reasonably and proportionately required by the court to achieve the overriding objective to deal justly with the issues which a case raises.

That obligation is imposed on the parties and their representatives too by r.1.3.

This necessarily means that the starting point for the expert, appointed for the purpose of reporting to the court, is the identification of the issues for expert report which are raised by the statements of case.

Therefore, when a party seeks permission for the appointment of an expert the issue on which that expert is to report must be clearly identified and it must emerge from the pleadings.

The court will take the time to ensure that the expert's brief is clear and that any appointment passes the tests of reasonableness and proportionality.

That is why it is so important that the parties' representatives should always attend a case management conference when the appointment of experts will be considered in more detail.The single joint expertThe culture which prevailed prior to the reforms of the 'hired gun' expert on each side has been dealt an intentional blow by r.

35.7.

The rule is innovatory and deliberate.

The view is expressed that there is no general presumption in favour of the appointment of a single joint expert, and there is indeed no such express provision in the CPR, but the duty to restrict expert evidence means that the court and the parties must consider whether such an appointment is appropriate.

One factor to be taken into account must, of course, be the proportionality of cost in relation to the value and complexity of the claim.

Given that the parties each instruct him (r.

35.8), and the expert is under a duty to report impartially to the court (r.35.3), there will be a large number of cases in which this kind of appointment is appropriate.

There, is, however, a very important qualification to this proposition and that is that the nominated expert must genuinely understand the nature of his duties to the court, and for this reason it is sensible to provide in all cases that any expert instructed for the purpose of proceedings is specifically reminded of his duties to the court.

Provided that the expert does discharge those duties properly and that the parties have the opportunity to ask informed questions of him, there will be many cases in which the joint single expert meets any requirement for expert evidence in a particular case.Parties' own expertsThere have to be those cases in which the single joint expert is not very appropriate.

Those who advocate the approach that each side should always be entitled to have their own individual expert seemed to derive false comfort from Lord Woolf's judgment in Daniels v Walker (2000) The Times, May 17 CA.

The position he expounded was that the appointment of a single joint expert is commonly the starting point but does not prevent, in a suitable case and for good reason, the appointment of a single party expert on the same issue but subsequently.Experts' meetingsOne of the situations in which the parties might reasonably expect to be permitted to employ their own experts exists when there is an issue on which there is a legitimate range of expert opinion in an area of technical or forensic uncertainty.

When such a situation exists, the meeting of instructed experts with a view to the production of a joint statement is of critical importance.

It is surprising how little moment some pra ctitioners attach to this step and how often experts are allowed to deliver vague and unsubstantiated joint reports which ignore the CPR and serve absolutely no useful purpose.

Despite this failure, courts are often urged to permit the attendance of experts at the final hearing so that what should have been done in writing at an interim stage, instead is deferred to the trial with the attendant cost and delay.

Practitioners need to be diligent to make sure that experts are fully aware and properly observe the requirements of r.

35.12.Experts at final hearingsThe expert should have already justified in writing the view he expresses with reasons for it.

How then is his contribution to the just disposal of the claim going to be enhanced by his attendance at the final hearing? There will be those cases in which oral expert evidence will be required at the hearing but, even where the CPR permit it -- it will not generally be allowed in fast track trials and on disposals -- it will not be every case.

When it is to be necessary, the parties should consider what part the experts are to play in the trial, and at what point.

This must be agreed between themselves so that the appropriate directions can be given by the procedural judge requiring, for example, the expert to attend on a particular day for the purpose of cross-examination.

No longer will cases be listed for final hearing by reference to the movement of busy experts alone.