Recorded Webinar—Closing the Gate to Junk Science: How Defendants Can Support Rigorous Judicial Oversight of Expert Testimony

Webinar

Featuring:

Evan M. Tager and Craig A. Woods, Partners, Mayer Brown LLP, and co-authors of WLF’s Monograph Admissibility of Expert Testimony: Manageable Guidance for Judicial Gatekeeping.

Description:

Expert testimony not only can decide the outcome of products-liability and toxic-tort lawsuits, but also can impact key rulings such as class-action certification and damages determinations. Judges must act as “gatekeepers,” the U.S. Supreme Court has proclaimed, to shield lay juries from what Justice Antonin Scalia called “expertise that is fausse and science that is junky.” Our speakers are two of a group of attorneys who authored a WLF Monograph, Admissibility of Expert Testimony: Manageable Guidance for Judicial Gatekeeping, released on January 15. The authors wrote this Monograph primarily for a judicial audience. In this Webinar, Tager and Woods will discuss how outside and in-house counsel can encourage judges to apply the Monograph’s principles and will present several of the publication’s case studies from a practitioner’s point of view.

Speakers' Biographies

Evan M. Tager

Evan M. Tager is a Partner in Mayer Brown LLP’s Washington, D.C. office. A co-leader of the firm’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice, Mr. Tager has been integrally involved in a range of issues of paramount importance to the business community, including punitive damages, class-certification standards, admissibility of expert testimony, and enforceability of arbitration agreements. In 2014, Mr. Tager was named to the National Law Journal’s inaugural list of “Litigation Trailblazers & Pioneers, and in 2012 he was named to the same publication’s list of “Champions and Visionaries.” Mr. Tager is the Featured Expert Contributor on Judicial Gatekeeping of Expert Evidence for Washington Legal Foundation’s blog, the WLF Legal Pulse. And he is also editor-in-chief of Mayer Brown’s blog on punitive damages, Guideposts.

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Craig A. Woods

Craig A. Woods is a Partner in Mayer Brown’s Product Liability and Mass Tort litigation practice. He is an experienced trial lawyer who specializes in litigation involving complex medical, scientific and technical issues, including product liability and toxic tort cases. With an electrical engineering background (University of Kansas (1991, with highest distinction)), Mr. Woods brings a highly specialized set of skills to litigating claims based on technical and cutting-edge issues in science and medicine. He has extensive experience in organizing multi-disciplinary expert teams, mounting expert testimony admissibility challenges under Daubert/Frye standards, utilizing court-appointed experts, and employing expert analysis, testing, and simulations to support litigation. Mr. Woods graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1994 and, prior to joining Mayer Brown in 1995, clerked for The Honorable William C. Conner, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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