Insights & Events

As Chair of the International Association of Defense Counsel’s Rule 702 Sustainability Committee, Hollingsworth partner Eric Lasker served as Editor of a comprehensive federal Circuit-by-Circuit guide, as published in the Summer 2024 issue of the Defense Counsel Journal, that identifies the key “wayward cases” that may fail to meet the standards of amended Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

In recently amending Federal Rule of Evidence 702, the Advisory Committee explained that a large body of existing case law on Rule 702 was wrongly decided. We can expect, however, that plaintiffs’ counsel will continue to rely heavily on this now discredited case law in opposing properly asserted challenges to unreliable expert testimony. To assist defense counsel in defeating this tactic, our new Rule 702 Circuit Guide provides a Circuit-by-Circuit listing of this overruled case law, with a discussion of how each case runs afoul of the language of the new Rule.

The Rule 702 Circuit Guide is the latest in Hollingsworth LLP’s 40+ year focus on protecting the courts and juries from the distortions caused by speculative and unfounded expert opinions. As you know, the recent amendment to Rule 702 was triggered by our 2015 law review article, which highlighted the dangers of judicial reluctance to properly exercise the gatekeeping responsibility placed on trial courts in the Supreme Court’s Daubert trilogy. The December 2023 amendment was a major milestone, but history tells us that without continued diligence, plaintiffs’ counsel will fight back and erode these new protections.