Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 31, 2026

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
Judges' socio-technical review of contested expertise
1Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Abstract:
This article investigates how civil court judges practice meta-expertise in cases that feature contradictory and inconclusive medical expertise. The empirical case study consists of a sample of eleven Helsinki district court verdicts from 2014-2017, drawn from a larger number of similar traffic insurance compensation cases. The case-type features a medical controversy concerning traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnostics. I contend that the difficulties judges face in evaluating the medical expertise result from epistemic asymmetries between legal and medical professionals. This study highlights the importance of explaining and understanding how judges overcome uncertainty and discriminate between expert positions. Drawing from earlier studies on meta-expertise and judges' practice of evaluating expertise in court, I introduce the concept 'socio-technical review' to describe judges' practice of facilitating highly technical and esoteric scientific expertise to needs of judicial decision making. I argue that socio-technical review is a special form of practicing meta-expertise, which effectively allows meta-experts to manage epistemic asymmetries. In examining how meta-expertise is practiced in the TBI case-type, the paper contributes to general sociological understanding of decision-making under uncertainty and suggests further studies in comparable settings.
Related Concept Videos
Case Studies
The Representativeness Heuristic
Social Facilitation
Decision Making: Traditional Method
First, a specific claim about the population parameter is decided based on the research question and is stated in a simple form. Further, an opposing statement to this claim is also stated. These statements can act as null and alternative hypotheses, out of which a null hypothesis would be a...
Critical Thinking
Colleges and universities are...
Psychosurgery
Historical Development of Psychosurgery
In the 1930s, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz introduced a surgical procedure designed...

