Diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, causation, apportionment, impairment and disability–these are the key issues that litigators and judges rely on forensic physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists to clarify, identify and/or eliminate in both criminal and civil courts. However, attorneys and jurists seldom have the skills or expertise required to determine whether a forensic expert has used proper and reliable techniques or instead has fallen prey to subtle biases, employed improper methodologies, followed improper procedures, employed faulty reasoning, come to inaccurate conclusions, provided sub-par treatment or failed to meet the standard of practice or care. 

This chapter, designed for lawyers and judges, will better enable them to understand the nature of forensic practice in medicine, psychiatry and psychology, how to recognize when forensic issues are being addressed properly, and how to recognize when they are being addressed poorly–that is, what it looks like when forensic experts offer specious arguments or otherwise go off the rails. Particular topics include: