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.

Inhalt

1 Descriptive Statistics.- 1.1 Measuring the disparity between two proportions.- 1.2 Proficiency test with a disparate impact.- 1.3 Bail and bench warrants.- 1.4 Dalkon Shield.- 1.5 Non-intoxicating beer.- 1.6 Atomic weapons tests.- 1.7 Attributable risk.- 1.8 Random variables and their sample realizations.- 1.9 Measures of central location.- 1.10 Capital infusions for ailing thrifts.- 1.11 Taxing railroad property.- 1.12 Super-Drowsy drug.- 1.13 Parking meter heist.- 1.14 Measures of dispersion.- 1.15 Texas reapportionment.- 1.16 Ancient trial of the Pyx.- 1.17 A measure of correlation.- 1.18 Dangerous eggs.- 1.19 School finance.- 2 Methods of Counting.- 2.1 Permutations and combinations.- 2.2 Was the bidding rigged?.- 2.3 Occupancy problems.- 2.4 A cluster of leukemia.- 2.5 Weighted voting.- 2.6 Measuring market concentration.- 2.7 Fluctuation theory.- 2.8 Tracing funds for constructive trusts.- 3 Elements of Probability.- 3.1 Some fundamentals of probability calculation.- 3.2 Interracial couple in yellow car.- 3.3 Hair evidence.- 3.4 "Selection effect".- 3.5 Bayes's theorem.- 3.6 Blood type evidence.- 3.7 Paternity probabilities and HLA tests.- 3.8 Screening devices and diagnostic tests.- 3.9 Airport screening device.- 3.10 Polygraph tests.- 3.11 Foundations of probability.- 4 Some Probability Distributions.- 4.1 The binomial distribution.- 4.2 Discrimination in jury selection.- 4.3 The normal distribution and a central limit theorem.- 4.4 Hiring of teachers.- 4.5 Testing statistical hypotheses.- 4.6 Educational Nominating Panel.- 4.7 Small and nonunanimous juries in criminal cases.- 4.8 The hypergeometric distribution.- 4.9 Were the accountants negligent?.- 4.10 Disputed election.- 4.11 Tests of normality.- 4.12 Silver "butterfly" straddles.- 4.13 The Poisson distribution.- 4.14 Is the cult dangerous?.- 4.15 Incentive for good drivers.- 4.16 Epidemic of cardiac arrests.- 5 Statistical Inference for Two Proportions.- 5.1 Fisher's exact, chi-squared, and z tests of equality for two proportions.- 5.2 Suspected specialists.- 5.3 Reallocating commodity trades.- 5.4 Examinations with adverse impact.- 5.5 Promotions at a bank.- 5.6 Confidence intervals.- 5.7 Paucity of Crossets.- 5.8 The purloined notices.- 5.9 Reports by commodity exchanges.- 5.10 Discharge for dishonest acts.- 5.11 Confidence interval for promotion test data.- 5.12 Confidence interval for atomic test data.- 5.13 Statistical power in hypothesis testing.- 5.14 Death penalty for rape.- 5.15 Is Bendectin a teratogen?.- 5.16 Automobile emissions and the Clean Air Act.- 5.17 Maximum likelihood estimation.- 5.18 Do microwaves cause cancer?.- 6 Comparing Multiple Proportions.- 6.1 Using chi-squared to test goodness of fit.- 6.2 Death-qualified jurors.- 6.3 Spock jurors.- 6.4 Grand jury selection revisited.- 6.5 Bonferroni's inequality and multiple comparisons.- 6.6 Wage additives and the four-fifths rule.- 6.7 Discretionary parole.- 6.8 Howland Will contest.- 6.9 More measures of association: phi-squared (?2) and tau B (?B).- 6.10 Preventive detention.- 7 Comparing Means.- 7.1 Student's t-test: hypothesis testing and confidence intervals.- 7.2 Automobile emissions and the Clean Air Act revisited..- 7.3 Voir dire of prospective trial jurors.- 7.4 Ballot position.- 7.5 Student's t-test and the Castaneda rule.- 7.6 Analysis of variance for comparing several means.- 8 Combining Evidence Across Independent Strata.- 8.1 Mantel-Haenszel and Fisher methods for combining the evidence.- 8.2 Hiring lawyers.- 8.3 Age discrimination in employment terminations.- 8.4 Meta-analysis.- 8.5 Bendectin revisited.- 9 Sampling Issues.- 9.1 The theory of random sampling.- 9.2 Selective service draft lotteries.- 9.3 Uninsured motor vehicles.- 9.4 Mail order survey.- 9.5 Domino effect.- 9.6 ASCAP sampling plan.- 9.7 Current population survey.- 9.8 Adjusting the census.- 10 Survival Analysis.- 10.1 Death density, survival, and hazard functions.- 10.2 Valuing charitable remainders.- 10.3 Marine transportation of liquefied natural gas.- 10.4 Network affiliation contracts.- 10.5 Defective house sidings.- 10.6 The proportional hazards model.- 10.7 Age discrimination in employment terminations revisited.- 10.8 Contaminated wells in Woburn.- 10.9 Extrapolation to low doses.- 10.10 Ureaformaldehyde foam insulation.- 11 Nonparametric Methods.- 11.1 The sign test.- 11.2 Supervisory examinations.- 11.3 Wilcoxon signed-rank test.- 11.4 Voir dire of prospective trial jurors revisited.- 11.5 Wilcoxon rank-sum test.- 11.6 Sex discrimination in time to promotion.- 11.7 Selection for employment from a list.- 11.8 Sentencing by federal judges.- 11.9 Spearman's rank correlation coefficient.- 11.10 Draft lottery revisited.- 12 Regression Models.- 12.1 Introduction to multiple regression.- 12.2 Head Start Programs.- 12.3 Estimating coefficients of the regression equation.- 12.4 Western Union's cost of equity.- 12.5 Tariffs for North Slope oil.- 12.6 Infringing sales.- 12.7 Measures of indeterminacy for the regression equation.- 12.8 Western Union's cost of equity revisited.- 12.9 Sex discrimination in academia.- 12.10 Statistical significance of the regression coefficients.- 12.11 Race discrimination at Muscle Shoals.- 12.12 Explanatory factors for a regression equation.- 12.13 Pay discrimination in an agricultural extension service.- 12.14 Reading multiple regression computer printout.- 12.15 Effects of capital gains tax reductions.- 12.16 Washington state school finance.- 12.17 Damages in a price-fixing case.- 12.18 Interactive models.- 12.19 House values in the shadow of a uranium plant.- 12.20 Alternative forms of regression analysis.- 12.21 Sex and race coefficient models for Republic National Bank.- 12.22 Locally weighted regression.- 12.23 Urn models for Harris Bank.- 12.24 Underadjustment bias in employment regressions.- 12.25 Underadjustment in medical school.- 12.26 Confidence and prediction intervals.- 12.27 Projecting, fuel costs.- 12.28 Severance pay dispute.- 12.29 Assumptions of the regression model.- 12.30 Stock manipulation.- 12.31 Transformations in regression analysis.- 12.32 Systems of equations.- 12.33 Death penalty: does it deter murder?.- 12.34 Quantal responses: logit and probit regression.- 12.35 Death penalty: discrimination on the basis of race of victim.- 12.36 The jackknife, cross-validation, and the bootstrap.- 12.37 Death penalty revisited.- Appendix I: Calculations and Comments on the Cases.- Appendix II: Tables.- Glossary of Symbols.- Author Index.- List of Cases.