Court-Appointed Expert and Accuracy in Adversarial Litigation

Kim, Chulyoung; Koh, Paul S.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2777114

“…A neutral court-advisor could prove useful for this purpose, 24 particularly in case of forensic science evidence, as judges are often ill-prepared for evaluating pieces of evidence proffered by experts, although there could be a repercussion as discussed by Kim and Koh (2015). 25…”

Section: Evidence Verifiabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…25 Within a standard litigation game, Kim and Koh (2015) study the effect of court-advisors on the litigants' incentive to proffer evidence. They find that the court's appointment of court-advisors could reduce the litigants' incentive to supply evidence.…”

Section: Juror Naivetymentioning

confidence: 99%

Adversarial Bias, Litigation, and the Daubert Test: An Economic Approach

Kim

¹

2016

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The last few decades have seen a dramatic shift in the admissibility of expert testimony in American courtrooms from a laissez-faire approach to a strict standard for admissibility, often called the Daubert test. The implicit rationale behind such a stringent standard for admissibility is the trier of fact's vulnerability to adversarial bias, which many legal scholars and practitioners assume to be rampant. Employing a standard litigation model in the literature, I demonstrate that client-expert relationships may not always exhibit adversarial bias and that a litigant may voluntarily present neutral expert testimony under certain situations. I also show that a litigant is more likely to deploy hired guns if the litigation environment is more favorable to his cause. In particular, the burden of proof assignment and the court's prior belief are shown to influence adversarial bias.

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“…Based on his experience as Judge Richard Posner's court‐appointed economic expert, Sidak () argues for court‐appointed, neutral economic experts. Within a standard litigation game, Kim and Koh () study the effect of court‐advisors on the litigants' incentive to proffer evidence. They find that the court's appointment of court‐advisors could reduce the litigants' incentive to supply evidence.…”

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confidence: 99%

An economic rationale for dismissing low‐quality experts in trial

Kim

¹

2017

Scottish J Political Eco

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2

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The history of the admissibility standard for expert testimony in American courtrooms reveals that the standard has gradually increased to a high level since a series of important decisions by the Supreme Court. Whether such a stringent standard for expert testimony is beneficial or detrimental to the American justice system is still under fierce debate, but there has been scant economic analysis of this issue. This paper attempts to fill the gap by presenting a game-theoretic argument showing that a stringent admissibility standard operates to increase the judicial decision's accuracy under certain situations. More precisely, when the judge faces uncertainty regarding an expert's quality, the admissibility standard may provide the judge with information about the quality of expert testimony, thereby increasing the accuracy of the judicial decision by mitigating the judge's inference problem. I show the ways in which this effect dominates at trial and discuss related issues.

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Adversarial bias, litigation, and the Daubert test: An economic approach

Kim

¹

2016

International Review of Law and Economics

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The last few decades have seen a dramatic shift in the admissibility of expert testimony in American courtrooms from a laissez-faire approach to a strict standard for admissibility, often called the Daubert test. The implicit rationale behind such a stringent standard for admissibility is the trier of fact's vulnerability to adversarial bias, which many legal scholars and practitioners assume to be rampant. Employing a standard litigation model in the literature, I demonstrate that client-expert relationships may not always exhibit adversarial bias and that a litigant may voluntarily present neutral expert testimony under certain situations. I also show that a litigant is more likely to deploy hired guns if the litigation environment is more favorable to his cause. In particular, the burden of proof assignment and the court's prior belief are shown to influence adversarial bias.

show abstract

Court-Appointed Expert and Accuracy in Adversarial Litigation

Cited by 3 publications

References 38 publications

Adversarial Bias, Litigation, and the Daubert Test: An Economic Approach

Adversarial Bias, Litigation, and the Daubert Test: An Economic Approach

An economic rationale for dismissing low‐quality experts in trial

Adversarial bias, litigation, and the Daubert test: An economic approach

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