Letter: Lawyers there to protect legal rights during psych exams

Letter to the Editor

By Stephen D. Phillips and Stephen J. Phillips

Stephen D. Phillips and Stephen J. Phillips are plaintiff’s lawyers with Phillips Law Offices. They write in response to Donald P. Eckler’s March 17 Lawyers’ Forum column, “Observers should be excluded from neuropsychological exams.”

Posted March 26, 2021 11:39 AM

Mr. Eckler recently expressed an opinion in the Law Bulletin that plaintiff’s lawyers should not be allowed to be present at their client’s examination by a defense-retained physician. This position is wholly inconsistent with Illinois statutes and one of the very cornerstones of litigation — namely, that a party to a lawsuit has an absolute right to have counsel at all proceedings — to protect his or her legal rights.There is no statutory exception for a retained expert witness to have special …

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