Today's New York Times reports what may the best legal term ever and a good substantive idea to boot -- forcing opposing expert witnesses to testify together, which Australian lawyers call "hot tubbing":
He might have preferred a new way of hearing expert testimony that Australian lawyers call hot tubbing.
In that procedure, also called concurrent evidence, experts are still chosen by the parties, but they testify together at trial — discussing the case, asking each other questions, responding to inquiries from the judge and the lawyers, finding common ground and sharpening the open issues...
Australian judges have embraced hot tubbing. “You can feel the release of the tension which normally infects the evidence-gathering process,” Justice Peter McClellan of the Land and Environmental Court of New South Wales said in a speech on the practice. “Not confined to answering the question of the advocates,” he added, experts “are able to more effectively respond to the views of the other expert or experts.”
Having testified as an a expert witness, I would agree that it's problem. The judges and hearing officers before whom I testified didn't understand the technical aspects, so they were not in a good position to decide between competing expert witnesses. I have not testified in a jury trial, but I would imagine that the lack of understanding would be even greater with a jury.
If hot-tubbing helps, I'd be all for it.
Posted by: David | August 12, 2008 at 11:40 AM
"Hot tubbing" is an interesting usage for sure. Another bit of legal lingo has a longer history. The practice of prepping a witness for his testimony is known in New York as horseshedding, because in the nineteenth century lawyers would speak to their prospective witnesses in the horse sheds across from the courthouse.
Posted by: Rob | August 12, 2008 at 05:05 PM