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ALLDOQ

The ALLDOQ blog

Medico-legal insights, reporting and compliance.

Practical guidance for expert witnesses and injury law firms, on medical evidence, court-ready reporting, radiology and keeping clinical data compliant under UK law.

A doctor writing notes at his desk while a patient sits opposite him during an examination
Medico-legal practice · · 6 min read

What is a medico-legal report? Types, contents and how it is used

A medico-legal report is a written opinion from a medical expert, prepared for a legal claim or proceedings. It explains a person's injuries or condition, what caused them and what the future is likely to hold, based on the medical records and usually an examination. In civil claims in England and Wales it is expert evidence under Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

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A surgical team in masks and caps looking down at the patient beneath an operating theatre light
Medico-legal practice · · 7 min read

What is the Bolam test? Bolam, Bolitho and Montgomery for medical experts

The Bolam test is the standard English law uses to decide whether a doctor was negligent. A doctor is not in breach of duty if they acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical opinion in the same field. Since Bolitho that opinion must stand up to logical analysis, and since Montgomery advice about risks is judged by what the patient needed to know.

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A person seen from behind, facing three people seated across a table at a hearing
Medico-legal practice · · 6 min read

UAB v Oneta: the smart glasses got the headlines, the expert evidence is the lesson

A claimant was fed answers through smart glasses while being cross-examined, and his evidence was rejected in full. That is the part everyone has written about. In the same judgment, a jointly instructed expert's opinion was also rejected, for a reason that has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with how the expert was instructed.

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A long library gallery lined with shelves of bound volumes and a row of marble busts
Medico-legal practice · · 7 min read

Cork v Smith: the AI told them to check, and nobody did

A High Court judge was given a quotation from a rule that does not exist. The chat transcripts show the AI warning, more than once, that the wording had not been verified against a primary source and should be checked before anyone relied on it. Nobody checked. The judgment is a lesson about supervision rather than about technology, and it reaches anyone who relies on work done by someone else.

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The columned facade and carved pediment of a neoclassical courthouse seen from below against a dark sky
Medico-legal practice · · 6 min read

R v FGD: what the Court of Appeal actually decided about witnesses and AI

A complainant used an AI tool to rehearse answers before cross-examination, and the trial was stopped. The Court of Appeal reversed that decision and ordered a retrial. The case is being reported as a ruling that AI preparation is witness coaching. Read against the judgment, that is not quite what happened, and the difference matters for anyone giving or handling evidence.

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A hand holding a pen over a legal document, ready to sign
Medico-legal practice · · 6 min read

Proportionate transparency for AI in expert evidence: what the courts are asking

The courts are drawing attention to how AI is used in expert and witness evidence: the Court of Appeal in R v FGD, the CJC's review and the BSB's guidance all land on the same idea, that AI use should be transparent to a proportionate degree. For an expert witness that means being able to say what a tool did, what the expert checked, and what stayed the expert's own judgement.

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Tall stacks of bundled paper case files on an office desk
Medico-legal practice · · 6 min read

Missing medical records: what an expert should do when the disclosure has gaps

The bundle is almost never complete. A referral with no clinic letter, a test with no result, three weeks of an admission with no notes: gaps like these are routine, and how an expert handles them decides whether the opinion holds. Name the gap and reason around it openly and the report is stronger for it. Work around it in silence and it becomes the thread the other side pulls.

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