The Society of Expert Witnesses is an independent, non-profit-making body, run entirely by expert witnesses for expert witnesses. The Society supports its members in three main areas:

Benefits of membership

• It acts as a voice for the expert witness community, ensuring that all those who influence the role of the expert witness hear the views of expert witnesses.
• It provides a lively forum, where experts from a full spectrum of disciplines can express their concerns, share their experiences, and focus on the legal and business aspects of being an expert witness.
• Increasingly, it is acting as a single source of information, collecting, analysing and commenting on the Civil Procedure Rules and other matters of interest to its members.
• Members receive a quarterly newsletter, Dispatches.
• Members have access to the Society's telephone Helpline for expert assistance with any queries they may have.
• The Society's Mentor Scheme. Novice members may request to be introduced to a more experienced ‘mentor’ within the same area of expertise, who is willing to share his or her practical knowledge.
• The Society holds two conferences each year to explore developments in the expert witness field, and is currently organising regional and special interest group meetings to facilitate further interaction between its members.

Foundation
The Society was founded in December 1995, after a survey carried out earlier that year had clearly indicated the need for an across-the-board association that would benefit all expert witnesses, regardless of specialisation. The society was to be run entirely by expert witnesses for expert witnesses, and to provide an organised network to encourage the exchange of information, foster higher and more uniform standards, and generally promote the ‘better use of experts’.

Structure
The Society formally emerged as a company limited by guarantee on 1 June 1996, with a strong democratic nature enshrined in its constitution. It is directed by a Committee of Management and has established an inclusive policy of membership, welcoming both practising and aspiring expert witnesses.

Membership classes
There are three classes of membership:

• Member: open to all practising expert witnesses; a Member has full voting rights.
• Associate: open to all professional people who are genuinely interested in becoming expert witnesses, but have no previous experience; an Associate Member cannot vote.
• Fellow: Fellowship is bestowed on distinguished members of the Society at the discretion of the Committee of Management; a Fellow has full voting rights.

Aims and objects
The main object of the Society is to promote excellence in all aspects of the service provided by expert witnesses, by means of the following:

• assisting members in running their expert witness business by any suitable means
• promoting the use of members by making potential clients aware of the elevated standards of the Society
• co-operating with any other body that is deemed to have a similar aim to that of the Society
• encouraging training for expert witnesses and those aspiring to become expert witnesses
• participating in any suitable activity that promotes the interests of the members of the Society.

The future
It will take some time before all the consequences of Lord Woolf’s reforms become fully apparent. As the changes unfold, the role of the expert witness will also change – with new duties and responsibilities as court-appointed experts, new pressures in the form of conditional fee agreements (CFAs), and new opportunities in alternative dispute resolution (ADR). The Society of Expert Witnesses, the only independent body that speaks for the expert witness alone, will remain true to its unofficial motto, ‘by expert witnesses for expert witnesses’, and continue to represent and serve its members.