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Timing of service of witness statements

In some cases, the court orders that the parties serve witness statements at different times, so that one party’s evidence is in response to the other party’s evidence. This is more likely to be appropriate where there are no statements of case, because then one party may need to know the case to which it has to respond before it can determine what evidence is required from it. Cases involving sequential witness evidence need no further consideration for the purposes of this Q&A: each party is of course required to serve their own witness statement at the time provided for in the order.

In other cases, the court orders that the same timing should apply to both parties’ witness statements so that their evidence is simultaneous. The court may either provide that witness statements be ‘exchanged’ at a specified time on a specified date, or use wording such as ‘the parties