Walsh Pizzi O’Reilly Falanga LLP partner Peter J. Pizzi was recently featured in the New Jersey Law Journal in coverage of the hearing before the New Jersey Supreme Court regarding proposed amendments to Rule 702 governing expert testimony.
The Court is considering whether to align the wording in New Jersey’s Rule 702 to conform to Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which was changed in 2023 due to lower courts’ failure to apply adhere to the correct standard for admission of expert witness opinion testimony. During the hearing, attorneys on both sides debated whether the proposed change would clarify or complicate the state’s current “Daubert-adjacent” framework.
Pizzi, a certified civil trial attorney, supported the proposal, emphasizing that the intent of the amendment is clarity, not substantive change, “It’s not to make a change in the law, but to bring clarity to the law. And that, I submit, is a good thing. We need that.”
He further noted that incorporating clarification into the rule itself could improve consistency without disrupting established jurisprudence, placing clarification within a rule is a way to accomplish that purpose “without completely redoing jurisprudence.”
His comments were cited alongside other practitioners as the Court considers whether codifying aspects of the standard would improve uniformity in the application of expert testimony rules across New Jersey courts.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has not yet issued a decision on whether to adopt the proposed amendment.
For additional information on this subject, at this link is the New Jersey Defense Association letter to the Supreme Court on the subject of the rule change and the letter submitted by Walsh’s Liza M. Walsh supporting the NJDA’s efforts.