Experts in family cases – judicial guidance (revised)

Following our post last week HHJ Altman has revised his guidance to take account of the need to apply for prior authority as a pre-condition of exceeding the prescribed maximum rates for experts. The revised guidance is available here.

Practitioners should note that it is the date of application for the certificate, not the date of the hearing, that determines which rules apply and the new rules only apply to cases where the certificate was applied for on or after 3rd October 2011, or the application received by the LSC on or after 10th October 2011 (see para 13 of the Funding Order and new para 1.58 of the Unified Contract Specification).