Too many experts who are not qualified are being allowed to testify in court, and this has triggered proposed changes to strengthen Rule 702, which is the federal rule of evidence regarding testifying experts. If adopted, the changes will result in more experts being excluded from testifying.

Getting lax: There has been debate in the legal community over whether the courts are performing their gatekeeping function as rigorously as originally intended, according to an article in the April issue of Business Valuation Update. Under Daubert or similar standards, courts are supposed to disqualify testifying experts who are not competent or who can’t offer helpful evidence. But the courts have been getting somewhat lax about this.

In a recent case, a motion to exclude an appraiser was denied, even though the appraiser was a “ripe target” for disqualification. This is an example of what’s been going on: The courts just let the experts testify, and then the judges decide on the weight to give that testimony, or they defer that decision to the jury. But this is not what was intended—hence, the proposed changes to Rule 702.