All attorneys must abide by the Rules of Professional Conduct—but many attorneys fail to realize that similar professional ethics requirements apply to most individuals providing expert testimony. If utilized correctly, these professional ethical standards can provide strong ammunition for impeachment when expert witnesses fail to abide by the ethical requirements of their field.

The opportunity to impeach expert witnesses using their own professional ethics requirements arises often in personal injury litigation. In this context, experts are retained to opine as to liability, causation or damages. Although attorneys often send prospective experts materials to review for a given case, experts do not always review that information in its entirety (or request the information they are missing) before providing an opinion. Meanwhile, many professional organizations require that those providing expert testimony in their given field consider all available relevant information before rendering an opinion.