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Sabrineh Ardalan, Expert as Aid and Impediment: Barriers to Asylum Representation, in Adjudicating Refugee and Asylum Status: The Role of Witness Expertise and Testimony 147 (Benjamin N. Lawrance & Gayla Ruffer eds., Cambridge Univ. Press 2015).


Abstract: This chapter opens by explaining the importance of expert testimony in asylum representation given adjudicators’ increasing demands for corroboration in recent years. It then addresses the sometimes-conflicting perspectives of experts and attorneys, and the need for increased transparency and communication among experts and attorneys about their roles and responsibilities. It concludes by arguing that explicit protocols must be adopted in order to improve collaboration between experts and attorneys in the asylum process and to mediate the divide between objectivity and advocacy that is often at issue in these cases.