Cal. Evid. Code § 720

Expert Witnesses Generally

Applied in 119 court decisions — leading case 17 Cal. 3d 24 - People v. Kelly (1976)

Most recently applied in 12 Cal. 5th 719 - People v. Holmes, McClain & Newborn (January 2022)

Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) A person is qualified to testify as an expert if he has special knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education sufficient to qualify him as an expert on the subject to which his testimony relates. Against the objection of a party, such special knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education must be shown before the witness may testify as an expert.

(b) A witness’ special knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may be shown by any otherwise admissible evidence, including his own testimony.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.