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PI Brief Update

Conflict Resolution Psychology and Civil Litigation - Dr Hugh Koch, Hugh Koch Associates

27/10/17. Following previous articles on how psychology impinges on the civil law process (1,2,3), this outline illustrates possible ways in which the psychology of conflict resolution can apply to medico-legal activity in civil compensation cases and be explored more substantively in a later paper.

The medico-legal trail in Fig I below indicates the main process steps involving medico-legal experts plus the several branches of psychology:-Screen Shot 2017-10-31 at 12.23.57

Conflict can occur in several relationships:

  1. Expert Witness – Claimant: During the pre-interview, interview itself and subsequent report writing stages, claimants may disagree with the style and content of conversations and written reports.

  2. Expert Witness – Instructing Lawyer: The lawyer, in receipt of an Expert’s report, may wish to communicate differences of opinion between the claimant (his/her client) and the expert. The issue of amendment of reports can become controversial and conflictual.

  3. Case Conference Discussion: This multi-person meeting of claimant, expert, lawyer, counsel is a unique opportunity to...

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All information on this site was believed to be correct by the relevant authors at the time of writing. All content is for information purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No liability is accepted by either the publisher or the author(s) for any errors or omissions (whether negligent or not) that it may contain. 

The opinions expressed in the articles are the authors' own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand. 

Professional advice should always be obtained before applying any information to particular circumstances.

Excerpts from judgments and statutes are Crown copyright. Any Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of OPSI and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland under the Open Government Licence.