Normally the court will not hire its own expert. That’s for the 2 sides to do. But sometimes the court will do just that.  Then you get the report and it’s completely against your position.  O Dear.  Court’s tend to listen very hard to their own experts.  It’s very very hard to get a judge to ignore what his own people are telling him.  So, What to do?

I. Don’t attack the expert.  That makes the expert defensive and the judge (who picked the expert) will want to defend the expert.  This does not bode well for you or your client.

II. Treat the expert’s report as “incomplete.”  That is, what factors did the expert NOT consider?  Why not?  What do these missing factors have to do with the report’s conclusions?

III. What evidence do you have on the missing factors?  Do they help you?  How much?  Shouldn’t the expert have considered the missing evidence?  How would the missing evidence change the results?

With a little luck you can get the expert to admit that the new evidence on the factors not previously considered would change their conclusions towards what you want.