Courteous counsel

Your article on being an expert witness in court ("Try Kavanagh's wig on for size", October 21) put too much emphasis on what is needed to be an expert witness rather than what you should do if you are asked to be one.

Having appeared as an expert witness in the UK and abroad, the most valuable advice I would give is to do your preparation with the legal team that has hired you. I always have a one to two-hour session with them to go through all the questions that they are going to ask me and try to generate a list of questions that may be asked by the other side.

Mark Griffiths Professor of gambling studies Nottingham Trent University