Professor Keith Rix and Alison Somek were awarded Honorary Fellowship of the EWI at the Sir Michael Davies Lecture on the 9th October.
Honorary Fellowship is the highest recognition that EWI can give to a person of eminence who has rendered exceptional services to the expert witness community.
It can sometimes be awarded to members of the community as a reflection of the respect and regard of their colleagues for a particularly important contribution over a long period of time.
Professor Keith Rix
Professor Keith Rix is a consultant forensic psychiatrist with more than 30 years’ experience working in the medicolegal field.
He has provided expert evidence in personal injury litigation, including clinical negligence cases, the criminal jurisdiction, coroners’ courts, capacity, professional regulatory and employment cases and in capital cases in the Caribbean and Africa.
Until recently he was a Chairman of the Fitness to Practise Panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service and part-time lecturer in the Department of Law, De Montfort University, Leicester. He is now Visiting Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, Institute of Medicine, University of Chester, and Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. In 2015 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.
He is a founding member of the Expert Witness Institute (EWI). He became a Fellow in 2002, and a Certified Fellow in 2023. He was a member of the Assessment Criteria working group and was instrumental in developing the new assessment criteria for the assessment of reports and for Certification. Subsequently, he was a longstanding member of the EWI Membership Committee and assessed many reports for applications. In addition, he was mentor to several members. He has written around 300 articles for the EWI website and still occasionally provides Case updates.
In addition to all these contributions and achievements, he has been a member of the Family Justice Council’s Experts in the Family Justice System Committee and is the Expert Witness Lead for the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine (FFLM) and the Royal College of Physicians.
He has been responsible for setting up medicolegal training for psychiatrists and has been organising The Annual Grange Conference which started in 2001 as an inhouse CPD event for psychiatrists and psychologists doing medicolegal work and is now the leading medicolegal conference for mental health professionals.
He is author of what many consider the definitive book on psychiatric expert testimony and contributor to many others and the Royal College of Psychiatrists has made his feedback tool, ‘Multisource Assessment of Expert Practice’, available to all expert witnesses and not just psychiatrists He is a frequent writer to the Civil, Criminal, and Family Procedure rule Committees to lobby for improvements to the rules and is continually working on his own professional development as an expert.
Professor Keith Rix’s contribution to the expert witness community is invaluable. To say that he is passionate about the integrity of the Expert Witness role would be an understatement. He is described as a very approachable, kind and helpful professional who goes out his way to be supportive to psychiatrists with a medico-legal interest.
Alison Somek
Alison Somek has acted as a care and occupational therapy expert witness since the 1980’s (pre the Woolf reforms). She established Somek & Associates in 1997. Having been in existence for 27 years Somek & Associates is now one of the largest expert witness consultancies in the UK. Under Alison’s direction, the organisation is synonymous for acting with integrity, independence, and professionalism, and for having balanced portfolio of claimant/defendant instructions.
A genuine pioneer in this field, Alison launched with just 3 associates, and under her management the team has grown to over 200 associates and 40 plus employees, making it one of the largest medicolegal companies in the UK. Through her involvement over many years with the Expert Witness Institute (EWI), Alison has developed and influenced the standards by which other medicolegal companies and independents operate. In 2019 Somek became one of the first Corporate Partners of EWI. Alison has until a couple of years ago been a regular contributor to ‘Facts and Figures’ tables for the calculation of damages.
She is passionate about the integrity of the Expert Witness role and has been responsible for the training and continued professional development in her work at Somek & Associates, as well as in her work with the EWI for whom she regularly undertakes training and assessments of membership applications. Alison is always the first to consider the implications of a judgement for expert witnesses, as well as to offer an alternative opinion where she feels the independence of the expert may be compromised.
Alison continues to work tirelessly in promoting the unique contribution of expert witnesses and raise the standards of their practice. She is always willing to contribute to response documents e.g. having recently contributed to the EWI’s response to the CPR Committee regarding Intermediate track reports. She has also made appeals to the MOJ regarding Legal Aid Rates. Alison was the chair of the Occupational Therapy Medico-legal forum (MLF) for many years, where she worked specifically on raising the profile of occupational therapy experts. She co-wrote the guidance document entitled: “Acting as an Expert Witness”, which remains a valuable resource for occupational therapy Expert Witnesses today. Alison has frequently written articles for publication.
She is well versed in case law and the requirements of the role and has done more than most to raise the profile and professional standards of what being a great expert is all about. She has the respect of expert practitioners from a range of different clinical and professional backgrounds, including many legal colleagues who will seek her advice and wise counsel.
Somek and Associates has, under Alison’s direction, continually strived to offer its clients innovative practice and has frequently provided training to solicitors, and at large legal events. She is a huge supporter of the EWI, its work, and extols the virtues of expert membership at every suitable opportunity.
Alison has just retired and will be greatly missed by all of her work colleagues. Alison deserves every honour and recognition of the positive impact she has had on the development of expert witness practice over many years and really does leave behind a tremendous legacy in the field.