stLouISTTedXStLouis Rewind: Juristat Founder on the Science of Legal Bias
In this talk from the TedXStLouis archive, CEO of Juristat and Legal Professional, Andrew Winship speaks about the biases in the legal system.
His first example explains that there is a significant impact based on the race and colour of an accused person in receiving judgement in court.
He also revealed that the blood sugar levels of the judge may also change the decisions by studying the meal breaks of courts and the judgements passed subsequent to them.
As his second example, Andrew explains that the Patent Application process takes 18 months to be reviewed by a patent officer whereas a small company has a probability of 68% and a larger company has a 87% probability of being granted.
He further explains that the patent officer ratios are 1:3 between female and male officers.
His study explains that female officers are two months faster than men in granting patent approvals whereas male officers have a higher probability of approving patent applications.
However, he also explains that there is a significant difference between approval rates of two patent officers.
In conclusion, he explains that the key factors to prevent these biases are proper data driven decisions and having empathy towards the other parties in the legal system with the hope of seeing a more transparent, predictable and equitable patent and legal system.
