Digital evidence · court reporting, Maidenhead
Under CPR Part 35 an expert is retained to assist the court, and that obligation ranks above anything owed to the client, the solicitor or whoever settles the invoice. A report drafted as advocacy with exhibits bolted on will not survive its first serious challenge, so the rule is the foundation everything else is built on.
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| Which report | When it applies | What's in it |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary findings report | Early advice, HR files, board-level decisions | What was found, the route to it, and conclusions in ordinary English |
| Report for insurers and loss claims | Where cause, extent and liability are in issue | The findings, exhibits, and a section on causation |
| A report to CPR Part 35 | Civil proceedings, England and Wales | The overriding duty stated, the instruction recorded, method in full, and signed declarations of truth and compliance |
| A report to CrimPR Part 19 | Matters in the criminal courts | As above, in criminal form: qualifications, the material bearing on reliability, credibility declared |
| Single joint expert instruction | Where the court directs one expert to serve both sides | A single report, issued to each party alike, with the court above them both |
Every instruction opens in confidence. You set out the incident, the devices and accounts it touches, and what the evidence has to establish; that settles the scope, and the scope settles the single written quote you receive before any examination starts. The scoping conversation is free.
Your letter of instruction is recorded and summarised within the report itself. Whatever bears on our credibility — beginning with an independent laboratory that carries no accreditation — is stated before the examination starts, rather than surfacing later under cross-examination.
Every step is carried out, and written up, expecting that an expert on the other side will go through it line by line, as one eventually will. Our conclusions do not bend towards the party who instructed us.
Civil or criminal decides the form: CPR Part 35 in the one case, CrimPR Part 19 in the other, each with the method in full, the exhibits, a continuity record with no gaps, and the two declarations. The conclusions open the document and the technical annex follows.
The point of handing over the lot — report, exhibits, source files, hash values, continuity log and the notes taken at the bench — is that a tribunal, or an expert instructed against you, can repeat the work and reach the same result.
A question worth putting to any expert before you instruct them: since April 2019 the practice directions in criminal cases have wanted whatever might weaken confidence in an expert's reliability out in the open, an accreditation not held expressly included. Kept quiet, it becomes the case's problem, not the expert's. Ours opens every report we issue.
Two companies, two sets of accounts that would not reconcile, and one folder missing between them. Neither version had come through the image untouched, and the timeline said as much in plain terms. Settlement followed within a month.
A findings report answers the question you asked and shows the working behind the answer. A report for court carries more: the overriding duty recorded, the instruction summarised, method and continuity in full, a statement of truth, a declaration of compliance, and disclosure of anything that might weigh against the expert.
Neither side, whatever the fee arrangement suggests. The duty to assist the court comes first and overrides what is owed to the instructing party; that ranking is what gives the report its value.
Yes. On a joint appointment one report is produced, and it reaches both parties at the same moment, worded identically, with neither of them seeing it first.
The rules require it declared, so it is declared, at the front of the report. What the court weighs is the method, since that is where a report's authority sits. It is the overstated report, not the unaccredited one, that comes apart.
Loop recording is already writing over what you need, and the deadline will not move. Open a case today: the diagnosis costs nothing and stays confidential.