From Finding an Expert to Evidencing the Instruction: What the New Family Procedure Rules Signal

Insight for family solicitors, local authority legal teams and expert witnesses. 

From 20th July 2026, the rules governing expert evidence in certain family law children proceedings are changing. 

The Family Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2026 will, in most cases, restrict the court's permission for expert evidence to experts who are regulated, and legal teams will need to be ready to show that the expert they propose meets the new definition.

On its face, this is a targeted change to one part of family practice. Examined more closely, it is a signal of something broader: expert witness instruction is becoming a process that must be evidenced.

What is changing

As reported by the Expert Witness Institute, the amendments:

• Introduce definitions of "regulated expert" and "technical expert" into rule 25.2 FPR, clarifying which categories of expert may give evidence in certain children proceedings.

• Insert a new rule 25.5A, requiring that expert evidence in certain children proceedings is provided by a regulated expert, subject to specified exceptions.

• Include transitional provision, so the changes do not apply to proceedings issued before the amendments come into force.

Under this new framework, the court will generally only give permission under the Children and Families Act 2014 for expert evidence from a "regulated expert", meaning an expert regulated by a UK statutory body, on a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, or regulated by an approved regulator under the Legal Services Act 2007.

There are exceptions: international social workers, experts instructed under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989, and "technical experts" providing evidence on digital forensics, DNA testing, handwriting analysis or toxicology testing. The court may also permit the instruction of any expert where no regulated expert is available.

Supporting amendments have been made to Practice Direction 25B, which sets out the duties of an expert, and Practice Direction 25C, which governs children proceedings, single joint experts and the process leading to instruction.

None of this changes the fundamentals of Part 25: expert evidence remains restricted to what is necessary to resolve the proceedings, and the expert's overriding duty remains to the court. 

What changes is what legal teams need to know, and be able to show about the expert before instruction.

Why this matters

Most practitioners already take care over who they instruct. The change means that suitability has a defined regulatory dimension, and the basis for it may need to be established and recorded earlier, more explicitly, and in a form the court can see.

Legal teams working in children proceedings may increasingly need to answer questions like:

• Is this expert regulated, and by whom? Which statutory body, accredited register or approved regulator?

• If the expert is not regulated, does one of the exceptions apply, and on what basis?

• If permission is sought on the ground that no regulated expert is available, what searches were carried out, and how is that documented?

• Beyond regulatory status: what are the expert's qualifications, relevant experience and availability within the court timetable?

The question at the heart of a Part 25 application has always been "why is this evidence necessary, and why this expert?" The new rules sharpen the second half of that question. The answer will increasingly need to rest on verifiable information, gathered before instruction and capable of being evidenced afterwards.

A wider shift

This is not purely a family law story about unregulated experts.

Across the courts, the direction of travel in expert evidence is consistent: greater transparency about who experts are, greater accountability for how they are selected and instructed, and greater expectation that the process around expert evidence (not just the evidence itself) will stand up to scrutiny. Judicial commentary on expert independence, the quality of instructions, and the conduct of experts has followed the same theme for years.

Within that context, the July 2026 changes are less a new departure than a formalisation of an existing trend. Expert witness instruction is moving from "finding someone suitable" to something more demanding: finding someone suitable, checking the basis for that suitability, evidencing the decision, and preserving the record.

The practical burden this creates

Children proceedings run to tight timetables. The information needed to assess an expert, regulatory status, registration details, qualifications, CV, relevant experience, availability, terms, is often fragmented across websites, directories, email threads and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Instruction itself frequently happens through inboxes: enquiries, quotes, letters of instruction, documents, chasers and clarifications scattered across email chains and attachments. Each new instruction repeats much of the same administrative work. 

When a question is later asked by the court, an opposing party, or an internal reviewer, reconstructing what was checked, when, and on what basis can mean piecing together a paper trail that was never designed to be one.

The role of better infrastructure

This is where infrastructure makes the difference.

If the regulatory status, qualifications and supporting documentation of an expert are held in a verified profile, checking suitability stops being a research exercise and becomes a review. If availability is visible, timetable risk can be assessed before instruction rather than discovered after it. If instructions, communications and document exchange happen in one secure workspace, the record of the process builds itself as the work is done. And if there is an audit trail, the question "what was checked, and when?" has an answer that does not depend on anyone's inbox.

This is the thinking behind Witness Connect. A shared workspace in which legal teams can find, check, instruct and manage expert witnesses, with verified expert profiles, structured instruction workflows, secure communication and document exchange, and a clear record throughout. Experts keep 100% of their fees, and both sides of the instruction work from the same information.

No platform can make an instruction compliant. The judgement about whether expert evidence is necessary, and whether a particular expert is appropriate, remains a professional one. What good infrastructure does is support the process around that judgement, so the information is in one place, the checks are easier to carry out, and the decision is easier to evidence later.

The care the process deserves

Expert evidence in children proceedings can shape decisions that change the course of a child's life. The courts have long insisted that the evidence itself meets a high standard. The July 2026 changes extend that expectation, in a modest but meaningful way, to the process by which experts come to be instructed.

When the outcome matters this much, the process of choosing and instructing the expert deserves the same care, transparency and record keeping as the evidence it produces.

For legal teams, the immediate task is familiar: understand the new rules, review current proceedings against the transitional provisions, and look at how expert information is gathered and recorded today. The longer term task is structural, and it is one the whole sector shares.

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Sources: Expert Witness Institute, Restrictions on unregulated Experts in Family Law Children Proceedings (July 2026); The Family Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2026 (SI 2026/699); FPR Part 25; Practice Directions 25B and 25C; Practice Direction Update No. 3 of 2026.

This article is general commentary, not legal advice. Legal teams should refer to the amended rules and practice directions directly.