Statistics for Lawyers is designed to introduce law students, law teachers, practitioners, and judges to the basic ideas of mathematical probability and statistics as they have been applied in the law. The book consists of sections of exposition followed by real-world cases and case studies in which statistical data have played a role. The reader is asked to apply the theory to the facts, to calculate results (a hand calculator is sufficient), and to explore legal issues raised by quantitative findings. The authors' calculations and comments are given in the back of the book. The cases and case studies reflect a broad variety of legal subjects, including antidiscrimination, mass torts, taxation, school finance, identification evidence, preventive detention, handwriting disputes, voting, environmental protection, antitrust, and the death penalty. The first edition of Statistics for Lawyers, which appeared in 1990, has been used in law, statistics, and social science courses. In 1991 it was selected by the University of Michigan Law Review as one of the important law books of the year. This second edition includes many new problems reflecting current developments in the law, including a new chapter on epidemiology. Michael O. Finkelstein is a practicing lawyer in New York City. He has been a member of the adjunct faculty of Columbia University Law School since 1967, teaching Statistics for Lawyers, and has also taught at Harvard, New York University, and Yale Law Schools. He is the author of a book of essays, Quantitative Methods in Law, and numerous law review articles on the applications of statistics in law. He frequently consults and testifies in litigated matters. Bruce Levin is a professor at the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University in the Division of Biostatistics. He is the Consulting Editor for Statistics for the American Journal of Public Health, participates in clinical trials, and is the author of numerous articles on the subject of biostatistics. He has consulted and testified as an expert in many law cases involving statistical issues.

When as a practicing lawyer I published my ?rst article on statistical evidence in 1966, the editors of the Harvard Law Review told me that a mathematical equa- 1 tion had never before appeared in the review. This hardly seems possible - but if they meant a serious mathematical equation, perhaps they were right. Today all that has changed in legal academia. Whole journals are devoted to scienti?c methods in law or empirical studies of legal institutions. Much of this work involves statistics. Columbia Law School, where I teach, has a professor of law and epidemiology and other law schools have similar "law and" professorships. Many offer courses on statistics (I teach one) or, more broadly, on law and social science. The same is true of practice. Where there are data to parse in a litigation, stat- ticians and other experts using statistical tools now frequently testify. And judges must understand them. In 1993, in its landmark Daubert decision, the Supreme Court commanded federal judges to penetrate scienti?c evidence and ?nd it "re- 2 liable" before allowing it in evidence. It is emblematic of the rise of statistics in the law that the evidence at issue in that much-cited case included a series of epidemiological studies. The Supreme Court's new requirement made the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scienti?c Evidence, which appeared at about the same time, a best seller. It has several important chapters on statistics.