Statistics for Lawyers (Springer Texts in Statistics)

Statistics for Lawyers presents the science of statistics in action at the cutting edge of legal problems. A series of more than 90 case studies, drawn principally from actual litigation, have been selected to illustrate important areas of the law in which statistics has played a role and to demonstrate a variety of statistical tools. Some case studies raise legal issues that are being intensely debated and lie at the edge of the law. Of particular note are problems involving toxic torts, employment discrimination, stock market manipulation, paternity, tax legislation, and drug testing. The case studies are presented in the form of legal/statistical puzzles to challenge the reader and focus discussion on the legal implications of statistical findings. The techniques range from simple averaging for the estimation of thefts from parking meters to complex logistic regression models for the demonstration of discrimination in the death penalty. Excerpts of data allow the reader to compute statistical results and an appendix contains the authors' calculations.

From the reviews of the second edition:

"The dangers of misusing statistics are illustrated by the case of People vs. Collins, in which the product of the probabilities of several characteristics described by eyewitnesses ... was presented as convincing evidence against the defendant. This book analyses this and numerous other interesting examples to show the relevance of statistics to forensic science, medicine, commerce and the law. Each of the statistical concepts and procedures is presented with examples that include exercises based on actual data. ... The book is quite readable." (Dr. Henry Roberts, Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol. 35, 2003)

"This is the first book on statistics for lawyers that has come out in a second edition. ... The most impressive change in the book can be attributed to the publisher, who has included the book in its relatively new series on Statistics for Science and Public Policy. First published as an inexpensive softcover edition, the book is now a beautiful hardcover volume ... . this book continues to be a wonderful resource for the use of statistics in the courts." (Technometrics, Vol. 44 (2), 2002)

"This book is designed to introduce law students, law teachers, practitioners, and judges to the basic ideas of mathematical probability and statistics as they are applied in the law. ... The cases and case studies reflect a broad variety of legal subjects, including antidiscrimination, mass torts, taxation, school finance, identification evidence ... and the death penalty. ... Significant new developments, reflected in this edition, include, for example, DNA evidence, epidemiologic studies in toxic substance litigation, statistical models for adjusting census counts, and vote-dilution cases." (Edward M. Psyadlo, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 983, 2002)