Court-Appointed Experts and Accuracy in Adversarial Litigation

International Journal of Economic Theory, forthcoming

34 Pages Posted: 11 May 2016 Last revised: 30 Aug 2018

See all articles by Chulyoung Kim

Chulyoung Kim

Yonsei University

Paul Koh

Columbia University

Date Written: January 2018

Abstract

Concerned about evidence distortion arising from litigants' strong incentive to misrepresent information to fact-finders, legal scholars and commentators have long suggested that the court appoint its own advisor for a neutral piece of information about the dispute. This paper studies the incentive problem faced by the litigants when the judge seeks advice from the court-appointed expert. Within a standard litigation game framework, we find a trade-off in utilizing the court-appointed expert: although it helps the judge obtain more information overall, thereby reducing the number of mistakes at trial, it hampers the litigants' incentive to supply expert information, which undermines the adversarial nature of the current American legal system.

Keywords: litigation game, court-appointed expert, persuasion game, evidence distortion

JEL Classification: C72, D82, K41

Suggested Citation

Kim, Chulyoung and Koh, Paul, Court-Appointed Experts and Accuracy in Adversarial Litigation (January 2018). International Journal of Economic Theory, forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2777114 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2777114

Chulyoung Kim (Contact Author)

Yonsei University ( email )

Seoul
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/chulyoungkim/

Paul Koh

Columbia University ( email )

3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
United States

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