TERRY, Associate Judge:
Appellant was convicted of distributing cocaine, a controlled substance, in violation of D.C.Code § 33-541(a)(l) (1988). On appeal he contends that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a Form DEA-7, a chemist’s report identifying the alleged controlled substance as cocaine, because the government had failed to comply with the notice requirement of D.C.Code § 33-556 (1988). We agree and reverse.
I
In February 1989, about a month after appellant was indicted, his original attorney withdrew from the case because of an injury, and a new attorney was appointed. The appointment was recorded in the court file and on the docket. Several weeks later, in early April, when the prosecutor was preparing for trial, she sent a copy of the DEA-7 to appellant’s former attorney, but not to the attorney who had been appointed in February.1
The case came on for trial late in the day on May 3. After the jury was sworn, the trial was recessed, and on the following morning the court was engaged in other business; consequently, the testimony did not begin until after the luncheon recess on May 4. The government’s evidence showed that appellant and his co-defendant, Irving McGee, sold a plastic bag of purported cocaine to an undercover police officer. Late in the afternoon, the prosecutor began [513]*513to question an expert witness about two exhibits, one of which was the DEA-7 stating that the contents of the plastic bag consisted of 847 milligrams of cocaine base. Appellant’s counsel objected on the ground that he had not received a copy of the DEA-7 prior to trial, contrary to D.C.Code § 33-556, which requires that a copy of the chemist’s report be provided to the defense at least five days before trial.2 When the DEA-7 was marked as Exhibit 9, appellant’s counsel asked for a bench conference at which he told the court, “I have not seen Government’s Exhibit Number 9.” A short time later, after counsel for the co-defendant had completed his cross-examination of the expert witness, appellant’s counsel asked the court for permission to defer his cross-examination of the same witness until the next morning because “I have not had an opportunity to look at the Jencks material.” 3 That request was denied. Counsel then cross-examined the expert about the handling of suspected drugs after they came into police custody, particularly the drugs in this case,4 and the trial recessed for the day.
The next morning, when the government moved Exhibit 9 into evidence, appellant’s counsel objected to its admission on the ground that the government had failed to comply with D.C.Code § 33-556. The court overruled the objection, reasoning that the report had been sent in good faith to the previous attorney, who had an obligation as an officer of the court “to refer all matters in regard to her [former] client to the appropriate attorney,”5 that defense counsel should have raised the matter before trial, and that counsel was aware of the laboratory analysis in any event, since he had been willing “to enter into a stipulation with the government so as to avoid the government having to put on an expert.” The case then proceeded to verdict.
II
The purpose of the requirement in section 33-556 that the chemist’s report be provided to the defense at least five days before trial “is to give sufficient notice to the defendant to decide whether to call the chemist for cross-examination....” Giles v. District of Columbia, 548 A.2d 48, 50-51 (D.C.1988) (citing legislative history); ac[514]*514cord, Belton v. United States, 580 A.2d 1289, 1294 (D.C.1990). But a failure to comply with this requirement does not compel exclusion of the report if it is otherwise admissible, nor is such a failure per se reversible error. Only when the breach of the five-day requirement results in prejudice to the defense is a new trial required. Id. at 1292-1293. We find such prejudice in this case, and thus we hold that appellant is entitled to reversal.
The government conceded at oral argument that an objection by counsel promptly upon receiving the DEA-7 at trial, coupled with a request for time to review it in order to determine whether to challenge it, is sufficient under Belton to establish prejudice. That is essentially what happened here. Even assuming that the DEA-7 was among the documents that counsel received on the morning of May 4 (see note 3, supra), his request that afternoon for an overnight recess before cross-examining the expert witness was prompt enough to preserve his claim of prejudice. The fact that the government sent the DEA-7 to the wrong attorney in good faith, as the court found, does not relieve the government of its responsibility for what happened. After all, attorneys often withdraw from cases for a variety of reasons, and new attorneys are retained or appointed to replace them. It is the government’s obligation to make sure that its records are kept up to date and that it serves documents on the correct attorney. There is no “good faith” exception to the five-day notice requirement of section 33-556, and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise.
The government urges nevertheless that we should affirm the conviction because the defense had expressed a willingness to enter into a stipulation about the drugs. The trial court likewise relied heavily on the stipulation in overruling the objection to the admission of the DEA-7:
[T]his record will reflect that the defendant Johnson wanted to enter into a stipulation with the government so as to avoid the government having to put on an expert. So the defendant Johnson certainly can’t say that he was not aware of the presence of a laboratory analysis in this case.
Unfortunately, the court did not accurately recall the stipulation. At the very beginning of the trial, before the first witness testified, appellant’s counsel said to the court:
I would like to put on the record that, on behalf of Mr. Johnson, we would be prepared to stipulate that whatever drugs are involved here, that it is a usable amount, and that ... it’s packaged in a certain way, consistent with drug distribution. [Emphasis added.]
Counsel’s purpose in agreeing to this stipulation was to keep from the jury’s ears “a great deal of extraneous information that’s not germane to this case” concerning illicit drug traffic, which he feared would come in if the police expert were to testify about how the drug was packaged. Significantly absent from the stipulation was any statement about the chemical analysis of the drug. Appellant’s counsel never offered or agreed to stipulate that the plastic bag contained cocaine. The court was simply mistaken in recalling that he did and erred in basing its ruling on that incorrect recollection.
In Belton v. United States, supra,
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TERRY, Associate Judge:
Appellant was convicted of distributing cocaine, a controlled substance, in violation of D.C.Code § 33-541(a)(l) (1988). On appeal he contends that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a Form DEA-7, a chemist’s report identifying the alleged controlled substance as cocaine, because the government had failed to comply with the notice requirement of D.C.Code § 33-556 (1988). We agree and reverse.
I
In February 1989, about a month after appellant was indicted, his original attorney withdrew from the case because of an injury, and a new attorney was appointed. The appointment was recorded in the court file and on the docket. Several weeks later, in early April, when the prosecutor was preparing for trial, she sent a copy of the DEA-7 to appellant’s former attorney, but not to the attorney who had been appointed in February.1
The case came on for trial late in the day on May 3. After the jury was sworn, the trial was recessed, and on the following morning the court was engaged in other business; consequently, the testimony did not begin until after the luncheon recess on May 4. The government’s evidence showed that appellant and his co-defendant, Irving McGee, sold a plastic bag of purported cocaine to an undercover police officer. Late in the afternoon, the prosecutor began [513]*513to question an expert witness about two exhibits, one of which was the DEA-7 stating that the contents of the plastic bag consisted of 847 milligrams of cocaine base. Appellant’s counsel objected on the ground that he had not received a copy of the DEA-7 prior to trial, contrary to D.C.Code § 33-556, which requires that a copy of the chemist’s report be provided to the defense at least five days before trial.2 When the DEA-7 was marked as Exhibit 9, appellant’s counsel asked for a bench conference at which he told the court, “I have not seen Government’s Exhibit Number 9.” A short time later, after counsel for the co-defendant had completed his cross-examination of the expert witness, appellant’s counsel asked the court for permission to defer his cross-examination of the same witness until the next morning because “I have not had an opportunity to look at the Jencks material.” 3 That request was denied. Counsel then cross-examined the expert about the handling of suspected drugs after they came into police custody, particularly the drugs in this case,4 and the trial recessed for the day.
The next morning, when the government moved Exhibit 9 into evidence, appellant’s counsel objected to its admission on the ground that the government had failed to comply with D.C.Code § 33-556. The court overruled the objection, reasoning that the report had been sent in good faith to the previous attorney, who had an obligation as an officer of the court “to refer all matters in regard to her [former] client to the appropriate attorney,”5 that defense counsel should have raised the matter before trial, and that counsel was aware of the laboratory analysis in any event, since he had been willing “to enter into a stipulation with the government so as to avoid the government having to put on an expert.” The case then proceeded to verdict.
II
The purpose of the requirement in section 33-556 that the chemist’s report be provided to the defense at least five days before trial “is to give sufficient notice to the defendant to decide whether to call the chemist for cross-examination....” Giles v. District of Columbia, 548 A.2d 48, 50-51 (D.C.1988) (citing legislative history); ac[514]*514cord, Belton v. United States, 580 A.2d 1289, 1294 (D.C.1990). But a failure to comply with this requirement does not compel exclusion of the report if it is otherwise admissible, nor is such a failure per se reversible error. Only when the breach of the five-day requirement results in prejudice to the defense is a new trial required. Id. at 1292-1293. We find such prejudice in this case, and thus we hold that appellant is entitled to reversal.
The government conceded at oral argument that an objection by counsel promptly upon receiving the DEA-7 at trial, coupled with a request for time to review it in order to determine whether to challenge it, is sufficient under Belton to establish prejudice. That is essentially what happened here. Even assuming that the DEA-7 was among the documents that counsel received on the morning of May 4 (see note 3, supra), his request that afternoon for an overnight recess before cross-examining the expert witness was prompt enough to preserve his claim of prejudice. The fact that the government sent the DEA-7 to the wrong attorney in good faith, as the court found, does not relieve the government of its responsibility for what happened. After all, attorneys often withdraw from cases for a variety of reasons, and new attorneys are retained or appointed to replace them. It is the government’s obligation to make sure that its records are kept up to date and that it serves documents on the correct attorney. There is no “good faith” exception to the five-day notice requirement of section 33-556, and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise.
The government urges nevertheless that we should affirm the conviction because the defense had expressed a willingness to enter into a stipulation about the drugs. The trial court likewise relied heavily on the stipulation in overruling the objection to the admission of the DEA-7:
[T]his record will reflect that the defendant Johnson wanted to enter into a stipulation with the government so as to avoid the government having to put on an expert. So the defendant Johnson certainly can’t say that he was not aware of the presence of a laboratory analysis in this case.
Unfortunately, the court did not accurately recall the stipulation. At the very beginning of the trial, before the first witness testified, appellant’s counsel said to the court:
I would like to put on the record that, on behalf of Mr. Johnson, we would be prepared to stipulate that whatever drugs are involved here, that it is a usable amount, and that ... it’s packaged in a certain way, consistent with drug distribution. [Emphasis added.]
Counsel’s purpose in agreeing to this stipulation was to keep from the jury’s ears “a great deal of extraneous information that’s not germane to this case” concerning illicit drug traffic, which he feared would come in if the police expert were to testify about how the drug was packaged. Significantly absent from the stipulation was any statement about the chemical analysis of the drug. Appellant’s counsel never offered or agreed to stipulate that the plastic bag contained cocaine. The court was simply mistaken in recalling that he did and erred in basing its ruling on that incorrect recollection.
In Belton v. United States, supra, we found that the defense had suffered no prejudice and affirmed the conviction. In this case, however, we find that appellant was prejudiced by being deprived of an opportunity to decide whether to call the chemist for cross-examination. The very purpose of section 33-556 was to give him that opportunity. Giles v. District of Columbia, supra, 548 A.2d at 50-51. Although appellant’s counsel did not specifically ask for a recess in order to subpoena the chemist, he did request an overnight continuance of the trial “in order to adequately prepare [his] cross-examination of [Detective Young],” precisely because (as he told the court the next morning) he had just seen the DEA-7 for the first time while Young was on the stand. The court should have granted that request; it could easily have done so, since it was already quite late in the afternoon. If it had, the [515]*515issue that vexes us here might well have evaporated, but it chose to deny counsel’s request and forced him to cross-examine Detective Young unprepared.6
Not all the blame should fall on the court, however. Any attorney who represents a defendant in a drug case should know that there must be, somewhere, a report of a chemical analysis of the suspected drug, for without it the government cannot prove its case.7 In objecting to the admission of the DEA-7 into evidence, appellant’s counsel told the trial court, “I don’t believe that I have any affirmative duty to notify the government of their shortcomings or their negligence.” While counsel was correct as a matter of principle, it would have been far better if he had called the prosecutor a week or two before trial and asked her to send him a copy of the DEA-7 so that the trial might not be delayed. Indeed, the statute contemplates that defense counsel will make such a request; the five-day notice requirement kicks in only when counsel fails to do so. The unwillingness of appellant’s counsel to pick up the phone and make a five-minute call to the prosecutor means that this case will now have to be tried again, when a little flexibility on counsel’s part would have saved a great deal of judicial time and effort, not to mention the stress of a second trial for his client.
Ultimately, however, the duty to comply with section 33-556 rests on the government. Its failure in this case to give the notice required by that statute, resulting in prejudice to appellant’s defense, means that it must now bear the burden of a reversal. The judgment of conviction is reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial or for other proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.