Forensic Audiology: A Guide for the Expert Witness
The most recent audiology text written on Forensic Audiology by Dr. Marc Kramer and Dr. Joan Armbruster was published in 1982. They offered an edited text that incorporated many distinguished authors presenting the state of the art of expert witnessing by audiologists over 40 years ago, with Kramer defining Forensic Audiology as, “Providing audiological expertise to questions of law.”
Fast forward to 2025. Both audiology and the legal profession are quite different. In 2025, Audiology has been a doctoral level profession for over 20 years, allowing many more colleagues to participate as experts within our profession. Since 1982, 43 years of audiological research has led the discipline to greater knowledge and understanding of the audiovestibular system injuries, diagnosis, and treatment. Technologies invented in the early 1980s, such as airbags in automobiles, offer a substantial safety feature but introduce a noise exposure injury that did not even exist at that time.
The legal profession now recognizes the changes and innovations in audiology and are more convinced to seek professionals in our field besides the otolaryngologists or ENTs who specialize primarily in the medical/surgical areas of care. LaPlant (2022), a district court judge in New Hampshire, states that the current legal system could not function without experts in the courtroom, as juries are made up of average individuals who may or may not have expertise in the topic areas being considered by the court.
Mangraviti et al. (2018) state that the role of the legal expert witness is to assist the “triers of fact.” The triers of fact may be either the judge and/or the jury depending upon the circumstances in the case. Although a retained audiology expert witness assists the triers of fact, attorneys also need forensic audiologists to be involved in the discovery or information gathering process for their legal cases.
As in any new professional specialization, the entrance of audiologists into the legal community demands the learning of new cultural rules, concepts, procedures, customs, and ethics to be studied, understood, and applied for success of an expert witness. Attorneys seek audiologists to assist them with their cases of personal injury, audiology malpractice, compensation litigation, and other areas involving a multitude of legal issues across the entire discipline.
The acquisition of the necessary skills begins with attendance at fundamental expert witness training courses taught by attorneys that know and understand the strengths and weaknesses of new expert witnesses. Although these courses are rather expensive, they are extremely beneficial, offering insight into the legal culture, valuable fundamental skills, and practice development suggestions. These courses provide the basic preparation required to become a valuable expert witness.
This Forensic Audiology text is intended for use as an adjunct to formal expert witness training courses. Consider it as an advanced course beyond what is taught in the basic courses, describing the many questions and answers that the new generation of audiology expert witnesses will encounter.
The Prologue: The Struggle for the Truth. The text begins with a few pages of historical background in the use of expert witnesses in the English Courts in the 1780s. The Folkes V. Chadd case (1782–1783) is the first actual trial where expert witnesses were used. The expert witness tradition was brought to the United States and developed into a system that is still used today.
Chapter 1: Introduction to Forensic Audiology. The first chapter of the book defines the area of practice and how experts are used by their retaining attorneys. It describes who should be an expert witness, how attorneys select experts for their cases, and how judges perceive these professionals.
Chapter 2: The Rules of Expert Testimony. There are rules in any discipline and forensic audiology is no exception. This chapter describes the rules of expert witnessing first described in the early 1900s. The two most important rules for experts, the Frye Rule (1923), later developing into the Daubert Rule (1993), are explained and how they have been adopted. While many consider the Frye Rule outdated, it is still used in some states for vetting expert testimony. Incompliance with either the Frye Rule, or the Daubert Rule currently used in most states and federal courts, can lead to disallowing testimony by an expert. This chapter also presents how attorneys attack the expert to disallow both their written and oral testimony.
Chapter 3: The United States Court System. The chapter begins with a discussion of the general differences of criminal and civil cases and the burden of proof necessary for each type of case. A brief historical discussion of the beginnings of the US court system and the general differences between state, federal, and supreme courts is provided as a preface for later chapters.
Chapter 4: The Structure of Criminal Cases. Legal definitions of criminals and descriptions of criminal behavior, such as misdemeanors and felonies, are provided in addition to a review of the processing procedure for criminal cases at the various levels of offenses and their corresponding punishments. This chapter also describes the fundamental roles of various courtroom officers and other personnel, including their roles and responsibilities for jury selection. Since this chapter deals with criminal processing, there is a discussion of the reasonable doubt level of proof required in criminal cases.
Chapter 5: The Structure of Civil Cases. This material takes the reader through the types of civil cases and the various stages involved in the processing of civil cases. There is a discussion of a different level of proof, different from the reasonable doubt required in criminal cases. In civil cases, the proof required is only evidence that proves, at least 51% of the time, the issue happened or would not have happened.
Chapter 6: The Legal Report. Most expert witness retentions will require a case specific expert witness report. This chapter offers general instructions for the report and the essential sections to be incorporated. These would include the complaint, the case description, purpose of retention, the retaining attorney, the audiological assessments, the differential diagnosis and its use in compiling the opinions, and the possible use of visual and auditory exhibits in court.
Chapter 7: Discovery – Deposition – Trial. The discussion focuses on each of the essentials of discovery in both criminal and civil cases and the forensic audiologist’s role within this process. As part of the discovery stage 20 to 30% of the cases will require experts to present oral testimony in a deposition. This chapter describes the deposition, its necessity and its pitfalls. Special emphasis is given to the deposition. Since it is considered part of the discovery process, attorneys conducting depositions are given substantial latitude in their efforts to extract expert testimony. When giving a deposition or testifying in a trial, the cross-examination is the most difficult component of the testimony. Methods are described that may be used to thwart the cross-examination attorney’s strategies to destroy the credibility of testimony by describing the opposition’s purpose, methods, procedures and goals for certain types of questions. Knowledge of the goals and objectives of certain types of questions can alert experts to cross-examination traps designed to cause Rule violations and the disallowance of an expert’s testimony.
Chapter 8: Forensic Audiology Practice Development. This chapter presents the general methods and procedures of establishing and maintaining an audiology forensic practice. A forensic practice is basically a business to business (B2B) operation, where one business markets their product to another business that presents their product at retail to a consumer. In this case, the business is legal audiological expertise, presented to attorneys that use this expertise to service the ultimate consumer, their client. The authors suggest the use of the marketing mix model offered by McCarthy (1960) to define the product, price, place, and promotion components.
Chapter 9: The Ethics of Expert Witnessing. Ethical practice is pinnacle within the legal profession. Ethical challenges arise for both attorneys and forensic audiologists; however, as the paramount purpose of an expert is to always tell the truth, there is no difference if the expert is retained by the plaintiff or the defense, the truth will always be the same. The chapter includes a checklist of how to prevent ethical violations and to assist in adherence to ethical standards for experts. The code of ethics of the Forensic Expert Witness Association is presented in addition to the American Speech-Language-Hearing, the American Academy of Audiology, and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology Codes of Ethics for reference.
References
Kramer, M. (1982). Preface. In Kramer, M., & Armbruster, J. (Eds.)., Forensic Audiology.
Baltimore: University Park Press.
Laplante, J. (2022, May). A view from the bench: How experts can improve their credibility with the judge and jury. Paper presented at the 29th Annual National Expert Witness Conference, Clearwater Beach, FL.
Mangraviti, J., Donovan, N., & Babitsky, S. (2018). How to start, build and run a successful expert witness practice. SEAK, Inc.
McCarthy, J. (1960). Basic marketing—A managerial approach. R. D. Irwin.
References
Kramer, M. (1982). Preface. In Kramer, M., & Armbruster, J. (Eds.)., Forensic Audiology. Baltimore: University Park Press.
Laplante, J. (2022, May). A view from the bench: How experts can improve their credibility with the judge and jury. Paper
presented at the 29th Annual National Expert Witness Conference, Clearwater Beach, FL.
Mangraviti, J., Donovan, N., & Babitsky, S. (2018). How to start, build and run a successful expert witness practice. SEAK, Inc.
McCarthy, J. (1960). Basic marketing—A managerial approach. R. D. Irwin.