An important legal development for expert witnesses.  Will it change things?  It shouldn’t if the expert adheres to their duties.  In the Supreme Court decision, by a majority of five to two, Lord Phillips rejected argument that expert witnesses would be discouraged from providing their services if they were liable to be sued for breach of duty.  “All who provide professional services which involve a duty of care are at risk of being sued for breach of that duty. They customarily insure against that risk.”  He added that a lesson was to be learnt from the position of barristers.  “It was always believed that it was necessary that barristers should be immune from suit in order to ensure that they were not inhibited from performing their duty to the court….yet removal of their immunity has not in my experience resulted in any diminution of the advocate’s readiness to perform that duty…..It would be quite wrong to perpetuate the immunity of expert witnesses out of mere conjecture that they will be reluctant to perform their duty to the court if they are not immune from suit for breach of duty”.   Concluding that the immunity from being sued for breach of duty should be abolished, whether in contract or in negligence, he emphasised that this did not extend to the absolute privilege enjoyed by experts in respect of defamation claims.   Dissenting (as did Lord Hope), Lady Hale said the topic was more suitable for consideration by the Law Commission and reform, if thought appropriate, should be considered by Parliament rather than the Supreme Court.