Expert Witness Essential Skills Course for Pain Management & Psychiatric Clinicians
Training experienced clinicians to produce clear, defensible, CPR 35-compliant evidence in complex and contested cases
Expert Witness Essential Skills Course
41 Portland Place, London
Thursday 12 & Friday 13 March 2026
This course provides advanced expert witness training for pain management and psychiatric clinicians producing medico-legal reports for the civil courts in England and Wales.
Clinical expertise alone is not sufficient in medico-legal practice. Courts require expert evidence that is structured, reasoned, independent, and compliant with CPR Part 35. This two-day Expert Witness Essential Skills Course exists to bridge the gap between clinical excellence and the standard of evidence required by the Court.
Designed for experienced clinicians entering or consolidating expert witness practice, the programme focuses on how medico-legal evidence is actually tested: CPR 35 compliance, judicial reasoning, adversarial challenge, surveillance evidence, joint statements, and cross-examination.
Rather than teaching theory, the course concentrates on structure, logic, judgement, and professional discipline — the factors that determine whether an expert’s evidence is accepted, preferred, or criticised. Delegates leave with a clear framework for producing first-time-right reports, managing professional risk, and operating as a credible, independent expert in high-value litigation.
This course reflects the Pain Expert and Psychiatric Expert commitment to setting — and maintaining — the gold standard in medico-legal evidence.
Reserve Your Place
Complete the short form below to book your place or make an enquiry. Our team is happy to help with any questions, advise on course suitability, and support you with practical arrangements and logistics.
What Previous Delegates Say
"One of the best courses"
“One of the best courses I have ever attended. The speakers were fantastic — highly knowledgeable, balanced and approachable. I would recommend this course to anyone contemplating medico-legal work, and also those in the infancy of their practice.”
Delegate
"Excellent course"
“An excellent course. Really helpful in improving my practice.”
Delegate
"Clear insight"
“Very good course for me with no background experience in this field. It gave me a clear insight into medico-legal work that is already useful in my clinical practice.”
Delegate
The Agenda
Essential Skills Course – Day 1
Essential Skills Course – Day 2
Course organisers
Course organisers: Dr Jon Valentine (Pain Expert Ltd) and Excel Medicolegal Training Ltd.
Day | *CPD | Course Fee |
Day 1 | 5 points | £400 |
Day 2 | 5 points | £400 |
Day 1 & 2 | 10 points | £750 |
*Royal College of Anaesthetists (TBC) | ||
Course faculty: Dr Jon Valentine – Consultant in Pain Medicine, Dr James Briscoe – Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Mike Sidery – Consultant in Pain Medicine, Dr Jonathan Hellewell – Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Francis Luscombe – Consultant in Pain Medicine, Dr Richard Sawyer – Consultant in Pain Medicine, Others TBC.
Who This Course Is Designed For
This course is for clinicians who recognise that clinical competence alone is not sufficient in medico-legal practice.
It is designed for:
- Consultant-level clinicians
Consultant-level clinicians in pain management or psychiatry who are exploring expert witness work as a serious professional pathway
- Early-stage expert witnesses
Early-stage expert witnesses who want structure, confidence, and defensibility before increasing report volume
- Experienced experts
Experienced experts seeking to raise their standard, reduce professional risk, or transition into pain or psychiatric work.
- Clinicians working in high-value claims
Clinicians working in complex, high-value claims, where credibility, reasoning, and independence are closely scrutinised.
The course is particularly suited to experts who want to practise at a level consistent with judicial expectation rather than peer adequacy, and who understand that reputation, repeat instruction, and professional longevity depend on that standard.
Delegate Feedback Across Experience Levels:
- “I had no background experience in this field. The course gave me a very good insight which will be useful for my clinical practice.”
- “It has helped me to develop my knowledge so that I am up-to-date.”
- “I would recommend this course to anyone contemplating medico-legal work and those early in their expert practice.”
- “Really good meeting. Informative and interactive. Lots of opportunity to ask questions, and yet on time throughout.”
- “The standard of the speakers was very high — expert, clear and practical. Two days was the right length. Excellent venue. Glad I came.”
Court-Facing Outcomes for Medical Expert Witnesses
By the end of the course, delegates will be equipped to:
- Operate as a credible, independent expert, trusted by the Court rather than aligned to a party
- Produce clear, logically structured reports that are CPR 35-compliant and withstand judicial scrutiny
- Conduct defensible medico-legal assessments, including in contested chronic pain and psychiatric presentations
- Address causation, diagnostic uncertainty, and inconsistency with disciplined, transparent reasoning
- Respond effectively to Part 35 questions, surveillance material, and joint expert meetings
- Understand what instructing lawyers are buying, and what causes experts to be dropped
- Reduce professional risk through stronger boundaries, documentation, and decision-making
Our Standard of Evidence
Pain Expert and Psychiatric Expert operate on a simple principle: expert evidence must be designed for first-time-right quality, court-compliant, and defensible.
The course is grounded in CPR Part 35, Practice Direction 35, and the Guidance for the Instruction of Experts in Civil Claims (2014). It reflects the same standard applied to our faculty and to the reports produced through our organisations.
This programme sets clear expectations around independence, reasoning, professional judgement, and accountability.
Delegates are trained to understand not only how to write reports, but how judges read them, how lawyers test them, and where experts most commonly fail. This is the difference between producing reports — and producing evidence the Court can rely on.
That standard is independently reinforced through structured, anonymised delegate feedback:
- “One of the best courses I have ever attended. The speakers were fantastic — highly knowledgeable, balanced and approachable.”
- “An excellent course. Really helpful in improving my practice.”
The Essential Skills Course is consistently rated Good to Very Good by delegates for relevance, clarity, depth of insight, and practical court-facing value. Feedback confirmed improved readiness for expert practice and a high likelihood of recommendation to colleagues, informing ongoing refinement of the programme.
Why clinical expertise alone isn’t enough in expert witness work
Read our perspective on the gap between clinical reasoning and legally robust evidence.
FAQs
Yes — provided you are approaching expert witness practice as a serious professional pathway. The course is designed for clinicians who want to build defensible foundations before increasing report volume.
Yes. CPR Part 35, Practice Direction 35, and the Guidance for the Instruction of Experts are core to the course, with emphasis on how compliance is assessed by the Court in practice.
Yes. While clinical content differs, the standards of reasoning, independence, structure, and judicial scrutiny are shared. The course explicitly addresses contested pain and psychiatric presentations.
Yes. A central aim is to help experts understand where and why judicial criticism arises, and how disciplined reasoning, boundaries, and report structure reduce professional risk.
The course is practical and court-facing. It focuses on how expert evidence is tested under pressure, including Part 35 questions, surveillance evidence, joint statements, and cross-examination.