Reading Room Document

Use of Technical Advisers by Board of Contract Appeals

A governmental decisionmaking body, including an agency board of contract appeals, may employ technical advisers to analyze and make recommendations on the technical aspects of evidence. Where a decisionmaker properly uses technical advisers, their reports and recommendations need not be disclosed to the parties to the proceedings; however, where the advice of technical advisers adds new facts to the record or constitutes evidence in itself, a court may require that it be disclosed. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/22591/download.

February 27, 1981