The Arts of Persuasion in Science and Law: Conflicting Norms in the Courtroom

Epistemology is important in the debate about science and technology in the courtroom. The epistemological issues and the arguments about them in the context of scientific and technical evidence are now well developed. Of equal importance, though, is an understanding of norms of persuasion and how those norms may differ across disciplines and groups. Norms of persuasion in the courtroom and in legal briefs differ from norms at a scientific conference and in scientific journals. Here, Kritzer examines the disconnect between science and the courtroom in terms of the differing norms of persuasion found within the scientific community and within the legal community

Constructing lattice points for numerical integration by a reduced fast successive coordinate search algorithm

In this paper, we study an efficient algorithm for constructing node sets of high-quality quasi-Monte Carlo integration rules for weighted Korobov, Walsh, and Sobolev spaces. The algorithm presented is a reduced fast successive coordinate search (SCS) algorithm, which is adapted to situations where the weights in the function space show a sufficiently fast decay. The new SCS algorithm is designed to work for the construction of lattice points, and, in a modified version, for polynomial lattice points, and the corresponding integration rules can be used to treat functions in different kinds of function spaces. We show that the integration rules constructed by our algorithms satisfy error bounds of optimal convergence order. Furthermore, we give details on efficient implementation such that we obtain a considerable speed-up of previously known SCS algorithms. This improvement is illustrated by numerical results. The speed-up obtained by our results may be of particular interest in the context of QMC for PDEs with random coefficients, where both the dimension and the required numberof points are usually very large. Furthermore, our main theorems yield previously unknown generalizations of earlier results.Comment: 33 pages, 2 figure

Lawyers on Trial: Juror Hostility to Defendants in Legal Malpractice Trials

In contrast to medical malpractice, legal malpractice is a phenomenon that has attracted little attention from empirically-oriented scholars. This paper is part of a larger study of legal malpractice claiming and litigation. Given the evidence on the frequency of legal malpractice claims, there are surprisingly few legal malpractice cases that result in jury verdicts. There are many possible explanations for this, one of which reflects the perception that lawyers are held in such low esteem by potential jurors that they risk harsh treatment by jurors when they are defendants in legal malpractice trials. Because we could find no empirical evidence that that either supported or rejected the reality of this perception, we designed a simple jury simulation experiment to test this as an hypothesis. Using three different case scenarios, each in two forms (one set within a legal malpractice framework and one outside legal malpractice), we found support for the hypothesis in only one of the three scenarios and even there the effects were at best modest. These results held up controlling for other possible factors that might influence juror responses to the case scenarios

From van der Corput to modern constructions of sequences for quasi-Monte Carlo rules

In 1935 J.G. van der Corput introduced a sequence which has excellent uniform distribution properties modulo 1. This sequence is based on a very simple digital construction scheme with respect to the binary digit expansion. Nowadays the van der Corput sequence, as it was named later, is the prototype of many uniformly distributed sequences, also in the multi-dimensional case. Such sequences are required as sample nodes in quasi-Monte Carlo algorithms, which are deterministic variants of Monte Carlo rules for numerical integration. Since its introduction many people have studied the van der Corput sequence and generalizations thereof. This led to a huge number of results. On the occasion of the 125th birthday of J.G. van der Corput we survey many interesting results on van der Corput sequences and their generalizations. In this way we move from van der Corput's ideas to the most modern constructions of sequences for quasi-Monte Carlo rules, such as, e.g., generalized Halton sequences or Niederreiter's $(t,s)$-sequences

To Lawyer or Not to Lawyer, Is that the question?

A central aspect of much of the debate over access to justice is the cost of legal services. The presumption of most participants in the debate is that individuals of limited or modest means do not obtain legal assistance because they cannot afford the cost of that assistance. The question I consider in this paper is whether income is a major factor in the decision to obtain the assistance of a qualified legal professional. Drawing upon data from five different countries (the United States, England and Wales, Canada, Australia, and Japan) I examine the relationship between income and using a legal professional. The results are remarkably consistent across the five countries: income has relatively little relationship with the decision to forego that assistance. The analysis suggests that those considering access to justice issues need to grapple with the more general issues of how those with legal needs, regardless of the resources they have available, evaluate the costs and benefits of hiring a lawyer