How Professor Hillel Bavli is Using Statistics to Reshape Evidence Law

WITH A SCHOLAR’S MIND AND A LITIGATOR’S EDGE, THE SMU DEDMAN LAW PROFESSOR IS USING THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL RIGOR TO CHANGE HOW COURTS—AND STUDENTS—UNDERSTAND PROOF.

Hillel J. Bavli is an Associate Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law, where he teaches Evidence, Torts, and Law & Statistics. With a rare combination of legal experience and statistical training, Bavli is helping to redefine how the legal profession thinks about justice, inference, and character.

“The trial can be understood as a kind of statistical problem,” Bavli said. “Jurors act as statisticians who are provided an incomplete data set.”

That view brings key insights to Bavli's scholarship, teaching, and policy work. He is currently writing a book on character evidence—under contract with Cambridge University Press—that critiques the current use of character evidence at trial and draws on Bayesian statistics to develop a more rigorous conceptual framework and a more effective rule to govern its use.

Bavli argues that the shortcomings of Federal Rule of Evidence 404—the federal rule on character evidence—may in fact offer a window into broader flaws in legal reasoning, ones that statistical methods could help remedy.

“A recurring theme in my scholarship is the integration of statistical methods and reasoning into legal thought—including legal scholarship, rulemaking, and adjudication,” he said.

His current academic trajectory is the product of an unusually rich and varied career. Bavli earned his B.A. in Economics from Boston University and his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. He practiced in complex commercial litigation, antitrust, and white-collar defense at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP before pivoting to academia. A Fulbright Fellow in Jerusalem, Israel, he later earned his Ph.D. in Statistics in Law and Government from Harvard University, where he also received an A.M. in Statistics and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School.

Along the way, he designed and taught a seminar on the economic analysis of law in Harvard’s Department of Economics, earning distinction in teaching. He completed short-term clerkships at the Supreme Courts of India and Rwanda and served as a fellow at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science and a visiting fellow at the Yale Law School Center for Private Law.

This unique combination of legal theory and statistical reasoning now shapes his work at SMU, where he teaches foundational courses and mentors students with a mix of intellectual intensity and clarity.

“Like a statistician, the factfinder uses evidence to infer facts and construct a narrative about the case,” he said. “They then plug that narrative into an algorithm—the law as instructed by the court—to arrive at a verdict.”

Bavli urges students to ask not only what the rules are, but whether they work—whether they make sense, prevent harm, and reveal truth. His classroom is known for balancing conceptual rigor with a recognition of human complexity. His research likewise spans both doctrinal and empirical domains. His scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of Legal Studies and Law, Probability & Risk, as well as law reviews including Stanford Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Boston College Law Review, and U.C. Davis Law Review.

Beyond publication, Bavli contributes his expertise to national conversations about legal standards and scientific testimony. He has served, for example, on the AALS Section on Evidence Executive Committee and on a government-sponsored panel reviewing standards for DNA testimony. He also presented a proposal to the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence to amend the rule governing character evidence.

“Statistics gives us tools to uncover what’s really going on beneath evidentiary rules,” Bavli said. “Without it, we risk developing legal policy and doctrine that rely too heavily on intuition or tradition, without sufficient basis in empirical evidence or careful reasoning.”

That belief in grounding law in evidence and clear reasoning—not just about the facts of a case, but about the systems that adjudicate those facts—animates his work. He is especially attentive to the legal system’s encounter with rapidly evolving technologies like artificial intelligence, emphasizing that limited statistical literacy among judges and attorneys could have significant consequences.

It’s important for the courts and the legal system to understand the implications of these tools,” he noted. “Their value depends on the quality of the data and the reasonableness of their assumptions.”

While Bavli’s scholarly contributions span continents and disciplines, teaching remains a central and deeply valued part of his work.

“I hope they leave my class not just knowing the rules of evidence,” he said, “but knowing how to think critically, precisely, and compassionately.”

For a scholar who writes at the intersection of law and statistics, law is not abstract. It is about people—how they decide what to believe and how to act, and how systems help or hinder that process.

With a forthcoming book, expanding policy influence, and a new generation of analytically trained students emerging from his classes, Bavli is reshaping how courts and lawyers think about evidence, accuracy, and fairness.