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  • 1.  Expert witness as resource to Federal Court rather than either side

    Posted 07-15-2012 10:40
    I have heard of experts in other fields working as  experts as a resource to the Federal judge rather than on behalf of one side or the other.  In other words, the Court is the client and pays rather than one of the sides being the client and paying.

    Does any body have experience or knowledge of such situations?
    It would be particularly helpful if  the experience were about expert statistical work with regard to  racial discrimination by a Federal agency.

    What legal terminology is used to describe this role?
    Are there some case citations you know of?

    if you worked in this capacity how did it work?

    If you encountered this situation in non-Federal courts, which courts were they and how did it work out?

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    Arthur Kendall
    Social Research Consultants
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  • 2.  RE:Expert witness as resource to Federal Court rather than either side

    Posted 07-15-2012 12:10
    Arthur, I was the FBI's "senior personnel statistician" for 11 years as a govt. employee then 2 1/2 yrs more as their contractor on the same Federal class action racial discrimination law suit. They had lost the case and I was hired in view of the monitoring provisions of the class action settlement.  I wrote about 180 technical reports on that and related topics, most of which were considered admissible in Federal court as evidence. I also wrote declarations that were admitted into evidence and rebuttals of the other side's expert statistician's analyses of the same body of personnel data, that also were used by the FBI's team of litigators.

    To respond to your questions:

    -- Expert statistician or expert personnel research statistician or technical advisor might do as titles
    -- The Daubert case against a pharmaceutical firm is considered the standard, I believe, for determining qualifications of expert witnesses
    --  In my work, I turned to several statistically oriented books dealing with how courts considered statistical evidence in this arena.  Among them were:  Connolly. Peterson, Connelly "Use of Statistics in Equal Employment Opportunity Litigation" (Law Journal Press, updates issued annually, representing critiques by a member of the bar of that year's EEO cases, selected for using some form of statistical analysis/model/methodology.)  In general, the book or collection of annual updates is filled with citations of how the Court found in various cases and their reasoning.  There's also Levin and Kaye, "Statistics in the Courtroom" and the many articles of Dr. Joseph Gaswirth on applying statistical methods to EEO issues.  The first book I mention would have a great many citations of circuit and Federal courts' statistical reasoning (such as the cases dealing with what alpha level is suitable, whether or not 2 standard deviations is enough of a discrepancy between groups to represent statistical significance, why they threw out a case because a model was underspecified, etc.)
    -- After my government retirement, I was paid as a contractor by the FBI in the same roles as before. This was considered a sole source contract that the Contracts Office worked out with me. I submitted a monthly (quarterly also was available) invoice for the number of hours I worked,my fee for those hours, and a general summary of what I did during that time. I also maintained my own listing of reports I had written during that monthly period. I was a certified Federal contractor, and had filed to be listed in that way. I think the database is called CCR.  I would think that someone worked as a technical advisor to a Federal judge would need to be listed in that database of Federal contractors.
    -- I might say that other federal agencies heard of me through my FBI agency contacts, and so one of them called me for some specific advice.  I provided that at no cost, as a favor.

    You may gain some more information about the personnel statistician/technical advisor role by contacting the Federal Judicial Center, located near Union Station.

    Hope this information helps and good luck, 

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    Milton Goldsamt, Ph.D.
    Consulting Research Statistician
    Silver Spring, MD
    301-649-2768
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  • 3.  RE:Expert witness as resource to Federal Court rather than either side

    Posted 07-15-2012 19:59
    Milton Goldsamt rpovides a lot of useful information. The Federal Judicial Center would be a good place to ask. Robert T. Reagan is on the staff there and has a particular interest in statistics used in the law. My impression is that it is unusual for federal judges to call on statisticians and other experts to assist them, but that in principle they can and sometimes do.

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    William Fairley
    Senior Statistician and President
    Analysis & Inference, Inc.
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  • 4.  RE:Expert witness as resource to Federal Court rather than either side

    Posted 07-15-2012 20:48
    To extend some of the points I made in my other message: I praised the Connolly et al. book as one filled with commentaries on how statistics has been applied to specific court cases.  I thought I'd track down the book a little more, and I find that its price has more than doubled since I last used it three years ago. (It's now $289 but probably is in its 25th annual update, and still highly valuable.) A description of the book appears at--- http://www.lawcatalog.com/product_detail.cfm?productID=1091&setlist=0&return=search_results&CFID=6923169&CFTOKEN=1474e80749e12450-8D32F937-F363-CCB4-6B77FDFD6728DD5C

    Interesting that this topic came up: my wife and I were having dinner Saturday night with friends, a retired administrative law judge in the maritime field, and he said he taught himself enough statistics to understand and interpret the types of statistical analyses that came before him when he was sitting as a judge. He had no one to help him! I wonder how much he really absorbed but he seemed content with the understanding he had.

    I forgot to add before that the Federal Judicial Center has issued a large number of useful publications on applied statistical topics.  They can be reached at http://www.fjc.gov/

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    Milton Goldsamt, Ph.D.
    Consulting Research Statistician
    Silver Spring, MD
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  • 5.  RE:Expert witness as resource to Federal Court rather than either side

    Posted 07-16-2012 08:14
    Thank you for your input. 

    The FJC manual that is used in training Federal judges on scientific evidence has been especially useful.  It sometimes uses one statistical dialect without recognizing that there are variations in different areas of stat. So I am careful to relate to that terminology.


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    Arthur Kendall
    Social Research Consultants
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