Limits to Multidisciplinary Teams’ Recommendations of Legal Decisions in the Brazilian Judiciary

Over the past decades, the Brazilian Judiciary has created teams with different experts (e.g., psychologists, social workers) to assist courts in judicial decision-making, especially by enlightening nonlegal aspects deemed essential to ensuring rights. These multidisciplinary teams, however, often recommend how the courts should decide each case. This theoretical article discusses the limits of multidisciplinary teams in recommending legal decisions. For this purpose, it first presents claims that can justify the recommendations made by multidisciplinary teams. Then, it provides a critical analysis of the implications of this practice. At the end, it is argued that multidisciplinary teams should refrain from recommending judicial decisions and limit their opinions to their areas of expertise, except in cases where legislation explicitly demands experts’ opinions on legal matters.