After ten years as Co-Editor and then Editor of Behavioral Sciences and the Law, it is time to step aside and pass along this responsibility to my colleagues. We are indeed fortunate to have such capable colleagues, and Alan Tomkins (Editor), Charles Ewing (Senior Editor), and Alan Felthous (Co-Editor) will now Edit the Journal. I wish them well, confident that the reader will continue to enjoy a high quality, interesting, and informative publication.
Just 15 years old, BSL is now, we believe, one of the most respected periodicals among the many in the law and behavioral sciences area. Much thought and effort go into organizing and preparing each issue of BSL, given its thematic nature. While we have periodically considered shifting BSL to the traditional format of professional journals in which manuscripts on all subjects are published, we have elected to continue with the thematic format. Hopefully this provides the reader with a more unique and useful perspective on a given subject.
Producing and publishing a professional journal is a combined effort involving many people, mostly behind the scenes. The reader, and even the author, may have little idea about how many desks a particular article has landed on before it appears in print. Credit for any success that BSL may enjoy also goes to Alan Tomkins, Charles Ewing, our hard-working Editorial Board, the many outstanding scholars and clinicians we use as outside reviewers, as well as the production staff at John Wiley & Sons in Chichester. It has been a pleasure, and an education, for me to have worked with such a talented group of people. I am also grateful to James Cavanaugh and Richard Rogers who served as Editors of BSL before me, and who assisted me along the way during my tenure as Co-Editor and Editor.
The topic of this issue, Professional Liability, is a fitting place for me to end my work as Editor of BSL. BSL's first issue 15 years ago was Malpractice, an issue to which I contributed an article (``Tardive dyskinesia and malpractice''). We have not returned to this topic until now.
In the lead article, Daniels and Martin critique the basis for the movement to reform the civil justice system in the area of health care. They present some of the empirical literature regarding medical malpractice and contend that the literature does not support the popularized demand to reform the medical malpractice system. They also addressed how public policy in this area arose.
Studdert and Brennan also review some of the empirical work in medical malpractice but from the perspective of deterrence. They consider the present managed care environment, and its effect upon determining the standard of care, noting the many obstacles to the tort law's determining effective deterrence. They offer enterprise liability as one viable reform option to achieve effective deterrence.
Next, Jorgenson and colleagues review the matter of boundary violations, sexual or otherwise. Of particular interest is their use of fiduciary theory to evaluate clinical, ethical, and legal proscriptions against boundary violations.
Hart and colleagues present empirical work on awarding compensatory damages in personal injury cases. Noting the considerable variability in non-economic