Practice — 01
Legal consulting
Testimony, consulting expert support, and forensic assessment in matters concerning policing and public safety.
Dr. Atherley is a forensic and consulting criminologist retained in civil and criminal matters concerning police conduct and its assessment. These include use of force and misconduct, police administration and organization, risk management, biased policing and police reform, and violent, aggressive, and psychopathic behavior. A substantial part of the work concerns the methods by which such matters are measured and the records on which those measurements rest.
A substantial part of his practice is non-testifying: reviewing the methods and conclusions of other retained experts on behalf of counsel.
Subjects of opinion
Opinions are offered primarily in the areas detailed below. Every opinion is anchored in the evidence.
Police records and data systems
- Police administrative data systemsHow records of force, dispatch, response, contact, and discipline are generated, coded, and maintained; what agency systems capture and what they omit by design; where systems disagree with one another and why.
- Data provenance and integrityCompleteness, reliability, and limits of data produced in discovery; effects of extraction, filtering, and backfill on what a dataset can support; whether a conclusion drawn from an agency extract is warranted by the underlying records.
Police conduct and accountability
- Use of forceMeasurement and classification of force; identification of excessive force through analysis of administrative records; reliability and limits of force-factor methods.
- Enforcement patterns and police presenceMeasurement of over- and under-policing; geographic and temporal distribution of enforcement activity; interpretation of stop, arrest, and deployment data. Measurement of disparity, distinct from any legal conclusion as to disparate impact.
- Early intervention systemsDesign, operation, and evaluation of early intervention and officer risk-flagging systems; what such systems detect and what they do not.
- Certification and decertificationPeace officer certification standards; decertification practice and the national decertification index.
- Policy, training and supervisionPolicy adequacy and application; training design; supervisory and command review practice.
Operations and analysis
- Operational risk managementRisk management in police response to calls for service; dispatch triage and prioritization; allocation of patrol resources; response time.
- Crime analysisSpatial and temporal analysis of police activity and demand; measurement of physical police presence against calls for service; analysis of investigative process and outcomes.
- Officer fatigue and shift schedulingEffects of shift-work schedules on sleep, health, safety, and performance of police employees.
Methods and evidence
- Research methods and statistical evidenceReliability, validity, and appropriate use of quantitative evidence; critique of methodology and inference in opposing expert reports.
- Program and training evaluationDesign and conduct of evaluations of police training and intervention programs; what an evaluation can and cannot establish.
- Analytic method and inferenceStandards applied to analytic products; evaluation of inference drawn from incomplete agency data.
Narrowly framed
- Algorithmic and machine learning systemsValidation, error characteristics, and limits of algorithmic, machine learning, and natural language processing systems applied to police records and operations. Not a general opinion on artificial intelligence.
- Artificial intelligence in public sector operationsHow AI systems are configured, governed, and maintained so that they assist the work without compromising organizational safety, ethical obligations, or the delivery of public service. Covers deployment standards, human oversight, auditability, and the conditions under which reliance on such a system is or is not reasonable.
- Behavioral analysis in violent offendingPersonality traits and their relationship to law enforcement behavior and training outcomes; methodology of criminal profiling and its documented limits. Offered as method and its constraints, not as clinical assessment of any individual.
Forms of engagement
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Testifying expert
Formation of opinions, preparation of expert reports, deposition and trial testimony.
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Consulting expert to counsel
Non-testifying support during case preparation: assessment of the evidentiary record, identification of issues, development of examination themes.
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Consulting expert to retained experts
Methodological review and technical support to experts retained by counsel, including examination of data handling, statistical inference, and the basis for stated conclusions.
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Investigative and analytic support
Analysis of administrative records, incident data, and departmental documentation; reconstruction of operational sequences from agency records.
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Forensic and threat assessment — non-testifying only
Structured assessment of targeted violence risk and review of threat management practice, provided to counsel in a consulting capacity. No opinion in this area is offered as testimony.
Engagements and witness history
Each entry states the capacity in which the work was performed. Expert testimony, testimony as an organizational representative, and work performed in the course of employment are distinct, and are separated here rather than combined.
Independent consulting practice
- 2015– Consulting expert Dr. Richard Adler & Associates — Forensic Criminologist Methodological and technical support to experts retained by counsel in civil and criminal matters. Individual engagements are subject to privilege and to protective order and are not itemized.
Expert testimony
Opinion testimony given as a non-retained expert in the course of public employment, rather than under retention.
- 2026 Non-retained expert Organizational representative Denny Blaine Park for All v. City of Seattle King County Superior Court. Public nuisance action brought by neighboring property owners; Friends of Denny Blaine intervened in support of the City. Disclosed as a non-retained expert, and separately designated as the City’s organizational representative in the same matter.
Testimony as organizational representative
- 2023– Rule 30(b)(6) designee City of Seattle v. Kia America, Inc. and Hyundai Motor America Filed U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington; subsequently consolidated into multidistrict litigation, Central District of California. Municipal public nuisance action concerning omitted engine immobilizers and associated vehicle theft. Testimony given on behalf of the City as its designated representative, not as an expert.
Institutional experience
Performed in the course of public employment rather than under retention. Listed because it is the basis of the operational knowledge underlying the opinions offered above, because it bears on any conflicts assessment, and because it is the longest demonstration of non-testifying expert work in this practice: analysis produced for a party to active federal litigation and defended under external scrutiny.
- 2013– Employment Non-testifying United States v. City of Seattle — federal consent decree U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington. Worked on the decree from inception through termination. Built and ran the department’s internal performance measurement, evaluation, and compliance analytics capability, producing and defending research-quality analysis in support of the reforms and through each phase of the case, from initial compliance to sustainment. That analysis was subject to review by the court-appointed monitor and by the Department of Justice.
Admissibility
No opinion offered has been excluded or limited by a court.
Full testimony disclosure available on request
Engagement and conflicts
Retention. Engagements are accepted from either party. The retaining party does not determine the opinion; where the record does not support the opinion sought, the engagement is declined or the limitation is stated in writing. Fees are not contingent on the outcome of any matter.
Prior parties. Witness and expert work to date has been performed for governmental parties, largely in the course of public employment. No engagement has yet been undertaken adverse to a law enforcement agency. That is a fact of professional history rather than a limitation on retention, and it is stated here so that it need not be discovered.
Conflicts. A conflicts check is completed before any substantive discussion of a matter. Engagements are not accepted in matters involving the City of Seattle or its departments, or in any matter that would create a conflict with concurrent public employment. Where a relationship or circumstance leaves the position unclear, a determination is sought from the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission before the engagement proceeds.
Initial contact. Inquiries should identify the parties, the jurisdiction, and the nature of the claim only.
Independence. Consulting work is undertaken in an independent capacity. It is not performed on behalf of, and does not represent the views of, any employer or affiliated institution.
Fees. Legal work is billed at a single set of rates that does not vary by the identity of the retaining party: $650 an hour for analysis, $325 for standby, and $850 for time on the record. Trial and hearing days carry an eight-hour minimum; deposition days carry four. Standby on a day that is neither testimony nor travel is agreed case by case. A non-refundable $5,000 retainer is payable before work begins and is drawn down against fees as they are incurred. Rate schedule.
Engagements are accepted from government and private clients alike. Opinions are rendered on the basis of the evidence, using accepted methods, and to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. They are independent of payment and of client affiliation, and are rendered in accordance with the ethical codes and standard practices of the relevant professional associations.
Initial contact
Please provide the case caption, jurisdiction, retaining firm, the nature of the claim, and any deadlines.
Do not send case materials with an initial inquiry. Unsolicited privileged or confidential material may create a conflict that prevents retention. Documents should be exchanged only after a conflicts check is complete.