www.gmu.edu/departments/law/gmulawreview/issues/12-1/PDF/Pro%20Burtis.pdf

This article is a comment about the use of game theory in practice and its possible applications to litigations.  It spends time discussing the different approaches to using economics in the court room to focus on areas of economic analysis compared to game theory in cases such as antitrust suits. 

It makes a point that game theory can provide equilibrium on the basis of determining firm actions on the basis of other firms’ actions.  However, it also points out that determining optimal strategy also relies on selecting specific games and predictions about opponent strategy.  “While the conventional wisdom has been that predation is largely irrational, some game theory models have found particular examples where predation could be an equilibrium.” We covered this in class with the Hawk/Dove examples earlier. 

So, while this article points out that game theory could be a possible solution to many court room issues, it has a number of flaws that have prevented its use thus far.  The basic flaws are that it is assumed too complicated for most cases of use, there are too many equilibrium possibilities depending on game selection and criteria used to determine strategy, and that the models can easily be posed from opposite views to eliminate equilibriums that could reconcile situations. 

Ultimately, the use of game theory in the court room could alter the conventional wisdom used to establish many court decisions, but the potential for error or misrepresentation of results makes it less helpful than it could be.  The author ends by saying that until the results are tested more thoroughly, game theory will not help in litigation.  It is easy to see how, in the future, it could drastically change our views on antitrust and in many other court decisions.