Keeping Junk Sciences Out of the Courtroom

Product Liability Litigation partner Pamela Yates presented “Keeping Junk Sciences Out of the Courtroom” at an event sponsored by the Life Sciences Committee of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel on September 13, 2016.

Yates discussed techniques for demonstrating bad science to courts. In particular, she discussed ways to identify unreliable data, litigation-driven methodologies or novel conclusions that are contrary to those drawn by the scientific community as important ways to convince courts to exclude bad science and prevent it from reaching a jury.

Earlier in career, as a young associate, Yates drafted the actual summary judgment in Daubert, which led to the US Supreme Court’s decision that ultimately set the standard for challenging the admissibility of expert testimony.