Establishing Bias in an Expert Witness: The What, Why and How

Abstract An expert witness is one who is allowed to provide opinion testimony at trial based upon his or her specialized knowledge, training or experience, on matters that are relevant to the issues in the case and will help the fact finder to reach a decision. However, more often than not, these experts are found to be biased in several manners and thus render the exercise useless in the eyes of the Court. This paper discusses the various ways an expert can be considered to biased, the reasons behind such bias and the ways to establish bias in an expert witness.