Decision Making Expert Witnesses
Many commercial disputes ultimately ask whether a decision was reasonable when it was made. Shareholders challenge board and management decisions, investors question the judgment of fund managers and advisers, and counterparties dispute whether an auditor, underwriter, or other professional exercised sound judgment with the information available. Decision science also shapes consumer-facing commercial claims, where materiality and reliance depend on how purchasers actually evaluate products and disclosures. Because outcomes are known by the time litigation begins, the central challenge is separating the quality of a decision from the quality of its result and judging conduct against what a reasonable decision-maker would have known and done at the time.
A decision-making expert gives counsel a disciplined framework for that evaluation. Depending on the dispute, the analysis may reconstruct the information, alternatives, and uncertainty a decision-maker faced, apply decision analysis or real options methods to assess whether the chosen course was defensible, and examine whether the process reflected recognized professional practice. Behavioral scientists can explain how hindsight bias, anchoring, and framing affect after-the-fact assessments of judgment, which is often critical when a factfinder evaluates conduct knowing how events unfolded. In consumer and marketing disputes, experts in managerial and consumer decision-making can assess whether particular information would plausibly have changed a purchasing decision. That analysis supports liability and damages arguments and allows counsel to challenge opposing opinions that substitute outcomes for a genuine assessment of judgment.
Decision science spans behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, decision analysis, finance, negotiation, and professional judgment, so the expert best suited to evaluate a board's risk analysis may differ from the one needed to address consumer choice or auditor judgment. Experts in our network include judgment and decision-making scholars who have testified on the behavior of expert auditors and insurance purchasing decisions, decision psychologists who have published on decision aids and decision errors, and finance specialists in valuation, real options analysis, and risk management. Their backgrounds include consulting for organizations such as Royal Dutch Shell, Eli Lilly, IBM, General Motors, the Federal Trade Commission, and the National Bureau of Standards, and some have authored dozens of books and hundreds of research articles on decision support systems. Round Table Group has completed more than 75,000 expert searches for litigators and applies that experience to matching your case with the decision science expertise it requires. Let us help you find the right decision-making expert by calling us at (202) 908-4500.
