Publications & Presentations

Nathan Schachtman has published and presented on topics of interest to both legal and scientific groups. Some of the subjects covered include the nature, admissibility, and peer review of scientific evidence, the sophisticated intermediary defense in tort litigation, access to underlying research data for litigants, medico-legal screenings, and the legal admissibility of scientific, medical, and historian expert witness testimony.

In addition to writing and speaking, Mr. Schachtman has served as a peer reviewer for the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (2d ed. 2000) and its Manual for Complex Litigation (4th ed. 2002), as well as for the National Academy of Sciences and its Committee on Science, Technology & Law.

Many of these publications and presentations are listed below, some with links to the publications or presentations slides.

Publications:

“New ‘Rule 702’: Will It Require Courts To Reexamine Baby Powder Claims?” American Council on Science & Health (Jan. 18, 2024) (with Jacob Traverse)

“How ‘Startling’ Findings Outpace Thorough Science in Policymaking,” DC Journal (Nov. 15, 2023) (with Richard Williams)

“Statistical Evidence in Products Liability Litigation,” chap. 29, in Stephanie A. Scharf, George D. Sax, and Sarah R. Marmor, eds., Product Liability Litigation: Current Law, Strategies and Best Practices, 2nd ed. (N.Y. 2021)

“Products Liability Law – Lessons from the Military and Industrial Contexts” 13 J. Tort Law 303 (2020)

“Reassessing Roundup,” 36 Issues in Science & Technology 9 (Winter 2020) (comment on essay by Dr. Geoffrey Kabat)

Brief of 27 Election Law, Scientific Evidence, and Empirical Legal Scholars as Amici Curiae in Support of Appellees, in Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422, Supreme Court of the United States (Mar. 9, 2019)

Brief for amici curiae Coalition for Litigation Justice, Inc., Business Council of New York State, Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, New York Insurance Ass’n, Inc., Northeast Retail Lumber Ass’n, National Ass’n of Manufacturers, Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A., American Tort Reform Ass’n, American Insurance Ass’n, and NFIB Small Business Legal Center Supporting Defendant-Respondent Ford Motor Company, in Juni v. A.O. Smith Water Prods. Co., New York Ct. Apps., 32 N.Y.3d 1116, 116 N.E.3d 75 91 N.Y.S.3d 784 (2018).

Brief of 44 Election Law, Scientific Evidence, and Empirical Legal Scholars as Amici Curiae in Support of Appellees, in Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, Supreme Court of the United States (Sept. 1, 2017)

“How Science Days Are Changing Talc Litigation,” Law360 (June 16, 2017) (with David H. Schwartz)

“Presenting The Science Is Key In Talc Trials,” Law360 (June 9, 2017) (with David H. Schwartz)

“Drug-Induced Birth Defects: Exploring the Intersection of Regulation, Medicine, Science, and Law – An Educational Module” (2016) (A teaching module designed to help professional school students and others evaluate the role of science in decision-making, developed for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and its Committee on Preparing the Next Generation of Policy Makers for Science-Based Decisions); National Academy of Sciences grant 2000005526, for Development of Educational Module (Feb. 16, 2015).

“Statistical Evidence in Products Liability Litigation,” Chapter 30A, in Stephanie A. Scharf, Lise T. Spacapan, Traci M. Braun, and Sarah R. Marmor, eds., Product Liability Litigation:  Current Law, Strategies and Best Practices (PLI 2015)

“Legal Versus Scientific Proof: The Misunderstood Defense of Proximate Cause” The Risk Management Quarterly 12 (Spring 2014)

“Desultory Thoughts on Milward v. Acuity Specialty Products,” in David M. Cohen & Nathan A. Schachtman, eds., Daubert Practice 2013: How to Avoid Getting Sliced by Cutting-Edge Developments in Expert Witness Challenges (PLI 2013), updated at DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.5011.5285 (Oct. 12, 2015)

“The Third Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence— Time for Revision?” in David M. Cohen & Nathan A. Schachtman, eds., Daubert Practice 2013: How to Avoid Getting Sliced by Cutting-Edge Developments in Expert Witness Challenges (PLI 2013)

“The Role of the ‘Science Lawyer’ in Modern Litigation” in David M. Cohen & Nathan A. Schachtman, eds., Daubert Practice 2013: How to Avoid Getting Sliced by Cutting-Edge Developments in Expert Witness Challenges (PLI 2013)

Amicus  Brief by Scientists And Academics as Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, On Petition For Writ Of Certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States, W. Scott Harkonen v. United States, No. 13-180 (filed Sept. 4, 2013) (with Kenneth Rothman and Timothy L. Lash)

“Statistical Evidence in Products Liability Litigation,” Chapter 30A, in Stephanie A. Scharf, Lise T. Spacapan, Traci M. Braun, and Sarah R. Marmor, eds., Product Liability Litigation:  Current Law, Strategies and Best Practices (PLI Dec. 2012)

“Courting Clio:  Historians and Their Testimony in Products Liability Action,” in: Brian Dolan & Paul Blanc, eds., At Work in the World: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the History of Occupational and Environmental Health, Perspectives in Medical Humanities, University of California Medical Humanities Consortium, University of California Press (2012)

“The Daubert Will Set Your Client Free” (2012), an audio-visual tutorial for the uniniated

“Matrixx Unbounded:  High Court’s Ruling Needlessly Complicates Scientific Evidence Principles,” 26 (4) Washington Legal Foundation Legal Backgrounder (2011)

“Rule Evidence 703 – Problem Child 2009,” 17 Proof 3 (2009)

“Medical Literature Author Failed to Check His Facts 102708,” 194 New Jersey L.J. 17 (Oct. 27,2008)

“The Impact of Litigation on Neurological Research,” 69 Neurology 495 (2007).

“State Regulators Impose Sanction Unlawful Screenings 05-25-07,” Washington Legal Foundation Legal Opinion Letter, vol. 17, no. 13 (May 2007)

“Courting Clio – Historian Witnesses in Court,” for D.R.I., Silica Medicine Conference (June 2006)

“Silica Litigation – Screening, Scheming, and Suing,” Washington Legal Foundation Critical Legal Issues Working Paper (December 2005)

“Should an ILO 1/0 Be Compensated?” HarrisMartin Silica Columns (April 2004)

“Impairment is Essential to the Legal Concept of the Harm Required to Support An Award of Damages in a Personal Injury Tort Action,” for HarrisMartin Lecture Series (January 2004)

“On Deadly Dust & Histrionic Historians,” Mealey’s Silica Litigation Report Vol. 2, No. 3 (Nov. 2003)

“Ethics Daubert MedMon IWLN Spring 2002,” DRI Industry-wide Litigation Newsletter (Spring 2002)

“New Jersey Daubert v7 Sept 2001” in Fifty State Survey of Challenging Expert Witnesses in Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Cases in State Courts: A Report of the Pharmaceuticals and Biologicals Products Liability Committee (ABA 2002), with David Cooner

“Causation: The Problem of Intervening, Superseding Fault,” in J. McGoldrick & F. Smith, eds., New Jersey Product Liability Law (Newark 1994 & 2000 Supp.)

“Medico-Legal Issues in Occupational Lung Disease Litigation,” 27 Seminars in Roentgenology 140 (1992)

“Federal Habeas Corpus & Its Reform,” 13 Rutgers Law Journal 615-712 (1982), with Karen Allen and David R. Wilson

Lectures & Presentations:

I have lectured before legal, medical, and scientific groups on various topics, including expert witnesses, statistical, probabilistic and epidemiologic evidence, legal causation in tort cases, medical screenings, pharmaceutical products liability litigation, medico-legal ethics, access to research data, and peer review of courtroom testimony.

Scientific Methodology and the Admissibility of Expert Testimony, Eighteenth Annual Judicial Symposium on Civil Justice Issues, at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law (Oct. 7, 2024)

“Fraud, Error, and Ethics Violations: Exposing Bad Science in Litigation,” at the DRI Drug & Medical Device Seminar, Washington, DC (May 21, 2024)

“Litigation vs. Regulation – Rent-Seeking Madness versus Scientific Method,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Nov. 16, 2023)

“Pharmacovigilance: Regulation vs. Litigation,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Feb. 9, 2023)

“What is New in Pharmaco-vigilantism – Methods and Madness in the Law,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Mar. 2022)

“Pharmacovigilance vs. Pharmaco-vigilantism – Methods and Madness in the Law,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Mar. 2021)

“Pharmacovigilance vs. Pharmaco-vigilantism – Methods and Madness in the Law,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Feb. 27, 2020)

“Legally Wrong: When Courts and Science Meet,” Curriculum Vitae podcast with David Randall for the National Association of Scholars (Sept. 3, 2020).

“Asbestos and the Quest for a Safer Cigarette” (Aug. 14, 2020). An interview by Dr. Alan Blum, physician, professor, the Gerald Leon Wallace M.D endowed chairman of family medicine at the University of Alabama, and leading historian of tobacco marketing and tobacco medical propaganda. Our conversation appears at Dr. Blum’s website, where he has curated an on-line exhibition of advertising for the Kent Micronite filtered cigarette, and on YouTube, at “Elements of Asbestos”; “Asbestos – Disease and Litigation”; and “Lorillard’s Kent Micronite Filter with Asbestos.”

“Pharmaco-Vigilantism: Methods & Madness in the Law,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Feb. 27, 2020)

“Not Just an Academic Dispute: Irreproducible Scientific Evidence Renders Legal Judgments Unsafe” (Feb. 7, 2020)

“The Legal Sequelae of the 2016 American Statistical Association P-Value Statement,” Philosophy of Statistics Seminar, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, directed by Deborah Mayo & Aris Spanos (Aug. 5, 2019)

“Pharmaco-Vigilantism: Methods & Madness in the Law,” at the Yale School of Public Health (Feb. 14, 2019)

“Are some groups profiting off California’s health laws?,” on Press Play with Madeleine Brand (July 12, 2018) (coffee warning labels)

“How Not to Get Disqualified from Testifying,” at the SEAK 27th Annual Conference, Clearwater, Florida (May 5, 2018)

“Pharmaco-Vigilantism,” at the Yale School of Public Health (April 5, 2018)

“The Language of Law: When Risk is Tried in the Court of Public Perception,” at the Society for Risk Analysis annual meeting, Arlington, Virginia (Dec. 13, 2017)

“Statistics and Probability in the Law,” at Penn State University – Dickinson Law, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (Feb. 14, 2017)

“Pharmaco-vigilantism – Methods and Madness in the Law,” at the Yale School of Public Health (April 7, 2016)

“Evolution of Meta-analysis in Medicine and in Health Effects Litigation,” at the Yale School of Public Health (April 9, 2015)

“Drug Induced Birth Defects: SSRI Antidepressants” for the Committee on Preparing the Next Generation of Policy Makers for Science-Based Decisions, of the National Academies of Science (Oct. 10, 2014)

“The Criminalization of Scientific and Statistical Inference,” at Biostatistics and FDA Regulation: The Convergence of Science and Law, a symposium held at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (May 20, 2014), sponsored by the Drug Information Ass’n, Food and Drug Law Institute, and Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School

“Statistics and Probability in the Law: A Primer for Lawyers,” a webinar for the American Law Institute (April 4, 2014)

Presentation on the Bayesian analyses in Goodman v. Viljoen, to The Reliability of Evidence in Science and the Law Working Group, in the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto (March 7, 2014)

Co-Chair, Daubert Practice 2013: How to Avoid Getting Sliced by Cutting-Edge Developments in Expert Witness Challenges for the Practicing Law Institute, New York, NY (Sept. 23, 2013)

“Causation in Products Liability Cases”; Western New England College of Law, Springfield, Massachusetts (March 30, 2011)

“Meta-analysis:  The Science of Summing Up”; at the Science and Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (June 24, 2010)

“Courting Clio:  Historians and Their Testimony in Products Liability Action”; at the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) 4th International Conference on the History of Occupational and Environmental Health (June 22, 2010)

“Rule 703 – The Problem Child of Article VII”; and “The Effective Presentation of Defense Expert Witnesses and Cross-examination of Plaintiffs’ Expert Witnesses”; at the ALI-ABA Course on Opinion and Expert Witness Testimony in State and Federal Courts (February 14-15, 2008)

“Compelled Disclosure of Research Data in Litigation,” Committee on Science, Technology, and Law, National Academy of Science (November 19, 2007)

“Pharmacovigilantism and Avandia,” Mealey’s Avandia Litigation Conference (July 13, 2007)

Chair, Harris Martin’s National Silica Litigation Conference (September 28, 29, 2006)

“On Finding the Right Defendant in Silica Litigation,” and “Admissibility and Sufficiency of Expert Witness Testimony in Silica Litigation,” for Harris Martin’s National Silica Litigation Conference (September 28, 29, 2006)

“Courting Clio – Ruminations upon Historian Witnesses and State of the Art in Products Litigation,” for the D.R.I. Silica Medicine Conference, (June 15, 2006)

“Legal Remedies to Address Suspect Medical Science in Product Liability Cases,” for Mealey’s Advanced Insurance Coverage Conference, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (January 23, 2006)

“Epidemiology of Neurodegenerative Diseases and General Causation Medico-Legal Issues in Welding Rod Litigation,” for Harris Martin’s National Welding Rod Litigation Conference, in San Diego, California (January 12, 2006)

Guest Lecture, “Ethical Issues in Mass Tort Screenings,” Institute of Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (December 7, 2005)

“Pros and Cons of Mass Tort Screening,” for Mealey’s Silica Litigation and Medicine Conference, in Los Angeles, California (November 14, 2005)

“Litigation Inc.’s Lucrative Business Model: Mass Tort Screening, Scheming, and Suing,” for the Washington Legal Foundation (available for viewing at www.wlf.org) (September 29, 2005)

“Splitting Causes of Action in Silica Cases,” for Harris Martin’s National Silica Conference, in Las Vegas, Nevada (September 15, 2005)

“Contesting An Erroneous Diagnosis of Silicosis,” for Harris Martin Seminars, in New Orleans, Louisiana (March 26, 2004)

“Should an ILO 1/0 Be Compensated in Silica Litigation,” for Harris Martin Seminars, in New York, New York (January 29, 2003)

“State-of-the-Art Defense in Silica Litigation,” Chair and presenter at Mealey’s Silica Litigation Conference, in Atlanta, Georgia (October 13 and 14, 2003)

“Silicosis Litigation,” to Merrill-Lynch Institutional Investors, in Philadelphia, PA (October 7, 2003)

“Stop Silicosis Litigation – Now,” at Industrial Minerals Association – North America’s Semiannual Meeting, in Washington, D.C. (September 25, 2003)

“Medical and Liability Issues in Foundry and Quarry Silica Cases,” at HarrisMartin’s Silica Litigation Conference, in Las Vegas, Nevada (September 2003)

“The Current State and Future of Silica Litigation,” at the Mealey’s Silica Litigation Conference, in Boston, Massachusetts (April 2003)

“Fungicides and Experticides in Mold Litigation,” at the Mealey’s Construction Defects in 2002 Conference, Atlanta, Georgia (October 2002)

“Using Daubert as Sword & Shield in Medical Monitoring Cases,” at the American Conference Institute Conference on Medical Monitoring, New York, NY (April 2002)

“Daubert in Toxic Tort and Environmental Cases,” for the ABA Environmental Section, Breckenridge, Colorado (February 2001)

“Daubert and Toxic Torts,” for the Federal Judicial Center’s Federal Judicial Television Network (2001)

“Court-Appointed Expert Witnesses,” for Mealey’s Judges & Lawyers in Complex Litigation, Class Actions, Mass Torts, MDL and the Monster Case Conference, in West Palm Beach, Florida (November 8-9, 1999)

“Essentials of Daubert In Practice,” for the Toxic Tort and Environmental Law Committee, at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco (August 3, 1997)

Presentation on “The Role of Toxicology in Dispute Resolution, and on the Need for Peer Review of Expert Witness Testimony” at the Annual Meeting, North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology, American College of Toxicology Symposium on “The Medical Toxicologist in Dispute Resolution,” (Rochester, NY; Sept. 1995)

“Epidemiology and the Law” for NJ Institute for CLE (1993)