Social Science Statistics Blog

« October 24, 2006 | Main | October 26, 2006 »

25 October 2006

Unconscious Bias & Expert Witnesses

Jim Greiner

Quantitative expert witnesses are essential to modern litigation. But why do they disagree so often?

An excerpt from an article by Professor Franklin Fisher appears below. It’s a tad long, but it’s really worth reading. Does it ring a familiar bell with anyone out there?

“It is not, however, always easy to avoid becoming a ‘hired gun’ . . . The danger is sometimes a subtle one, stemming from a growing involvement in the case and friendship with the attorneys. For the serious professional, concerned about preserving his or her standards, the problem is not that one is always being asked to step across a well-defined line by unscrupulous lawyers. Rather, it is that one becomes caught up in the adversary proceeding itself and acquires the desire to win. . . . Particularly because lawyers play by rules that go beyond those of academic fair play, it becomes insidiously easy to see only the apparent unfairness of the other side while overlooking that of one’s own.”

Franklin M. Fisher, Statisticians, Econometricians, and Adversary Proceedings, 81 J. AM. STAT. ASS’N. 277, 285 (1986)

Posted by James Greiner at 12:00 PM