Expert Forensic Report

Before you order

Work starts when payment is received

Dr Robertson personally reviews your material, and we come back to you to begin — he corresponds through this office rather than directly. Up to that point the fee is refundable less the 30% administrative fee in our refund policy. Once he has opened the file it is not, because the reading and analysis that make up most of the work have been done whether or not the report is ever filed.

Give us the court date before you order, not after

A standard report takes 10–14 business days from the point instructions, documents and payment are all in — not from the day you order. If your hearing is sooner than that, say so when you order: the report is prioritised against your date at no extra charge, and where the deadline cannot be met you are told before the engagement is accepted rather than after. The surcharge is a separate question — it applies only where Dr Robertson is given seven days or less, however tight the turnaround.

Needing it within 7 days costs 50% more

Select Urgent above and the 50% short-notice surcharge is already in the price — nothing further is invoiced. It is a large uplift because a report written inside a week is not the same work done faster: the reading, the analysis and the writing are compressed into whatever hours exist, and every other file on the desk moves back to make room. Dr Robertson is frequently in court himself, so the days that can absorb a rushed report are genuinely scarce. An urgent report is not refundable once confirmed, because that time is committed and the preparation starts immediately.

If the matter settles or is adjourned

Tell us as early as you can. On a report booked against a court date: more than 14 days out it is refunded in full; between 7 and 14 days half comes back; inside 7 days there is no refund. If you think a fee overstates the work actually done, say so — we would rather look at it than lose a firm that briefs us regularly.

The report says what the results say

It is written to be defensible under cross-examination, which means it will state what the science does not support as readily as what it does. A report that only ever agreed with the party paying for it would be worth nothing in evidence, and that is the whole reason it carries weight.