More and more, figures and statistical information finds it way into litigation, both criminal and civil. At some point in your career as an attorney you will need to understand what can and cannot be accomplished in utilizing statistics. Most laypersons and attorneys are ill-equipped to handle such information. Oftentimes experts can find refuge in statistics which may or may not be truly relevant to the legal issue you are confronting. As Mark Twain (a/k/a Samuel Clemons) famously noted:
“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”
Another often quoted quip is:
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.”
In litigation, you will often hear someone argue that the odds of being injured in a particular fashion are so low that a jury should not compensate them. However, there is a real risk in engaging in such post hoc analysis. How would you feel for example, if the…
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