While a host of parties is urging the New Jersey Supreme Court to adopt the Daubert standard for admissibility of expert testimony, some lawyers say a change is unnecessary.

An assortment of large employers, business groups and law professors asked the state's highest court last month to adopt the Daubert standard in amicus briefs for a mass tort concerning the acne drug Accutane. The pro-Daubert campaign consists of four amicus briefs in In Re: Accutane Litigation, where Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. is seeking to overturn an Appellate Division decision finding testimony from plaintiffs' experts admissible.

The Daubert standard, which is derived from the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, is used in federal courts and in a majority of state courts, and is more stringent in weighing the admission of expert testimony than New Jersey's Rule of Evidence 702. In the Accutane case before the Supreme Court, proponents of Daubert have argued in amicus briefs that the current standard is unclear and that cases that couldn't survive in federal courts or in other state courts are being filed in New Jersey in hopes of getting a jury trial on less-than-reliable expert testimony.