It depends on the kind of reports you write. Some kinds of report have set fixed fee rate which we can tell you. Physiotherapy reports that are funded under Legal Aid rates have a fee rate of £64.80 per hour. MedCo reports for whiplash claims have a fixed fee of £180 for the first report, £180 for the second report, £50 for every report thereafter, and £80 for answering supplementary Part 35 questions. Reports done for the NHS Litigation Authority tend to be on a standard fixed fee of around £400-£500 pounds.
For other types of report, your fees will be dependent on the market rate combined with considering how specialist your area of expertise is, and how experienced you are in medico-legal report writing. You should bear in mind that expert witness work is ‘high-risk’ work whereby your individual credibility as both a professional and as an expert is under scrutiny and may be challenged. Rates for expert witness work reflect this risk and are significantly higher than for other forms of physiotherapy practice such as clinical work or lecturing.
Ultimately how much you can charge will depend on how much solicitors are willing or able to pay. You need to strike a careful balance between charging a fair rate for your expertise versus pricing yourself out of the market. If you overcharge relative to your experience in medicolegal work you risk delivering poor quality work which does not help the client, and also means you may not be reinstructed or recommended.
