Neil Vidmar
Russell M. Robinson II Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology
Neil Vidmar is Russell M. Robinson II Professor of Law. Professor Vidmar came to the study and teaching of law through a different path than his other law school colleagues. Instead of a law degree, he holds a Ph.D in social psychology. Vidmar received his B.A. from MacMurray College. During summers and winter breaks he helped fund his education by working in a steel mill in Granite City, Illinois and, subsequently, in a coal mine in his hometown of Gillespie, Illinois (he passed his Certificate of Competency as an Illinois coal miner in 1962).
Vidmar earned his M.A .and Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1967 and then joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where he conducted research and taught in traditional areas of social psychology. He had never given much thought to law or how social psychology might be relevant to law, but in one of those many quirks of professional life he was asked to testify about the effects of group dynamics on jury prejudice in a Toledo, Ohio murder trial involving a young black man accused of killing a policeman. This led to an invitation to a conference on the death penalty at Columbia Law School shortly after Furman v. Georgia (1972) temporarily abolished the death penalty. His interest in law now fully aroused, he spent a year as a Russell Sage Resident at Yale Law School (1973-74) learning about law, followed by a year at Battelle Seattle Research Center. Returning to the University of Western Ontario he began to dedicate his research to law-related problems, including rights consciousness, dispute resolution, eyewitness identification -- and juries. He was one of many persons who successfully advocated for the abolition of the death penalty in Canada. Professor Vidmar was a visiting professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 1984 and 1986, and in 1987 was invited to visit Duke Law School. He joined the Duke Law faculty on a permanent basis in 1989. Vidmar also holds a cross-appointment with the Department of Psychology at Duke. In 1996, he was awarded his chaired professorship in law.
Professor Vidmar's scholarly research involves the empirical study of law and spans a broad spectrum of topics in civil and criminal law. He is co-author of Vidmar and Hans, American Juries: The Verdict (2007). Other books include Hans and Vidmar, Judging the Jury (1986); Vidmar, Medical Malpractice and the American Jury: Confronting the Myths About Jury Incompetence, Deep Pockets and Outrageous Damage Awards (1995), and Vidmar, World Jury Systems (2000, examining over 50 contemporary jury systems from a comparative law perspective.) In addition to juries, his research at Duke has included studies of medical malpractice litigation, punitive damages, dispute resolution and the social psychology of retribution and revenge. He has testified about jury prejudice and related issues in criminal and civil trials, including cases involving charges of terrorism (e.g. John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban"). His expertise has also led to testimony and consulting about juries in Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. He has drafted a number of amicus briefs for cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts. At Duke he developed courses on negotiation for lawyers and on social science evidence in law; he also teaches seminars on medical malpractice litigation and on the American jury.