Your faithful correspondent

As stated here in flattering terms, I have signed up as the Virginia court-watcher for the excellent Blog 702.

To my understanding, the Virginia Supreme Court has not quite adopted Daubert. See John v. Im, 263 Va. 315, 322, 559 S.E.2d 694, 698 (2002) ("we have not previously considered the question whether the Daubert analysis employed by the federal courts should be applied in our trial courts to determine the scientific reliability of expert testimony"). The relationship between the federal evidence rule and Virginia law, see Va. Code 8.01-401.1, et seq., remains largely unexplored, but I have heard at least one circuit court judge (Judge Weckstein from Roanoke) opine (at a seminar, years ago) that the gist of Daubert was Virginia law even before Daubert.

Some of the black-letter language is the same:

FRE Rule 702 says: "If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case."

Section 8.01-401.3(A) says: "In a civil proceeding, if scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise" -- and there it ends, leaving out the rest of Rule 702, and leaving it to the courts (as they have done, in my view) to add those provisos to the statute.