Posted with permission from the SchachtmanLaw blog.
[...]A couple of months ago, Professor David Bernstein posted to the Volokh Conspiracy, a short piece about some of the missteps and mistakes committed by “elite defense counsel” in litigating expert witness issues. Professor Bernstein makes some interesting points about questionable positions taken by “elite defense counsel” (read: “highly paid, large firm lawyers”). For instance, according to Bernstein:
1. elite defense lawyers missed the boat early on by arguing that statistical evidence (observational epidemiology) was inadmissible or insufficient to prove general or specific causation;
2. defense counsel missed the significance of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Daubert;
3. defense counsel continued to press for Frye rule in state courts, although the Frye rule had been shown inadequate and unavailing as a rule to control medical causation opinions; and
4. defense bar has grown soft on Rule 702.Although the charges seem at points overstated, Bernstein has presented an important indictment of the defense bar. At the very least, the charges deserve a full exploration by a wider audience. Defense lawyers who are self-critical about their practice should certainly be concerned that someone as persistently pro-702 has taken aim at them.
On the first point, many of the early scientific causation battles were fought in tobacco litigation, in which defendants and their counsel were forced to deny and contest the obvious, the causal role for tobacco in carcinogenesis, at all costs. The tobacco defense bar, however, should not be confused with the defense bar, generally. Defense lawyers in Bendectin, silicone, and asbestos cases developed arguments against specious use of epidemiologic evidence, as well as sophisticated, affirmative use of epidemiologic evidence to show lack of association. Even so, we should keep in mind that it often requires a large body of epidemiologic evidence