{"id":6202,"date":"2018-03-08T16:43:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T20:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=6202"},"modified":"2022-09-26T15:48:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T18:48:02","slug":"expert-witness-forum-looks-at-bias-and-other-touchy-subjects-in-forensic-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/08\/expert-witness-forum-looks-at-bias-and-other-touchy-subjects-in-forensic-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert witness forum looks at bias and other touchy subjects in forensic work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I attended an expert witness conference in Toronto last week and it was good.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve attended these types of conferences in the US in the past and they were also good.\u00a0 But Toronto was different with its Canadian flavour and in addressing touchy subjects like bias in expert investigating and reporting, &#8220;dirty&#8221; experts and retaining experts on contingency.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not so sure about the prevalence of these\u00a0problems down east but in my invited\u00a0talk on <em>Principles Governing the Cost Control of Civil Litigation Involving Experts<\/em> I touched on problems we do have.\u00a0 Like experts retained many many months or years after a case is taken and technical investigation budgets estimated by non-technical people.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0two and a half\u00a0day, 3rd Annual Expert Witness Forum East organized by The Canadian Institute, Toronto, looked in depth at:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Implicit bias as seen by three Toronto police officers, and,<\/li>\n<li>Expert report writing as outlined by an experienced forensic engineer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There was also good coverage of related topics like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Case law and updates to the Rules of Civil\u00a0Procedure<\/li>\n<li>Breaking the logjam between experts and judges<\/li>\n<li>Trends in expert witness testimony<\/li>\n<li>Matching expertise to your case and,<\/li>\n<li>Principles governing the cost control of civil litigation involving experts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The treatment of implicit bias was an eye-opener.\u00a0 We&#8217;re human and it&#8217;s going to happen, it&#8217;s not always intended, but sometimes it&#8217;s deliberate.<\/p>\n<p>Two of my daughters\u00a0were interested in the conference program as well; I suspect because of\u00a0the bias theme.\u00a0 One is in hospital management in Toronto, and the other in veterinary medicine in the US who actually expressed some interest in attending.\u00a0 So, wide appeal for the forum.<\/p>\n<p>I took copious notes and hope to report in more depth on the conference but think I&#8217;ll wait on receipt of the speaker&#8217;s papers to be sure I get it right.\u00a0 Particularly that on bias and report writing. \u00a0These views need to be got out there to all involved in expert witnessing on both sides of the table.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s an Expert Witness Forum West, and a Forum East the one I attended.\u00a0 There&#8217;s an argument for an Expert Witness Forum <em>Way Down<\/em> East.<\/p>\n<p>I noticed some quite different practices being talked about in Toronto.\u00a0 We know about bias and it was good to air it &#8211; for sure the situation is similar down east.\u00a0 But the suggestion about retaining an expert on contingency even if under contract was a shocker.\u00a0 Perception-is-everything would be the Achilles&#8217; heel for that idea.\u00a0 The suggestion was quickly shot down.<\/p>\n<p>I think reference to\u00a0&#8220;dirty&#8221; experts is an unfair\u00a0misnomer for &#8220;consulting&#8221; experts, a valuable and less expensive role for an expert in civil litigation compared to testifying expert.\u00a0 Experts down east for the most part are objective in their investigative\u00a0work and when advising an advocate for an injured party.\u00a0 The most they can be faulted for is advocating for their findings.<\/p>\n<p><em data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">(Posted by Eric E. Jorden, M.Sc., P.Eng. Consulting Professional Engineer, Forensic Engineer, Geotechnology Ltd., Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. March 8, 2018 <strong><span class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">ejorden@eastlink.ca<\/span><\/strong>)\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attended an expert witness conference in Toronto last week and it was good.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve attended these types of conferences in the US in the past and they were also good.\u00a0 But Toronto was different with its Canadian flavour and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/08\/expert-witness-forum-looks-at-bias-and-other-touchy-subjects-in-forensic-work\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6202"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10335,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202\/revisions\/10335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}