2023 OFF DEPOSING THE ARTFUL DODGER – Archived

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Deposing the Artful Dodger
Six Cross-Examiners vs. Bill Clinton

This webinar teaches how to recognize and best attack question-dodging and truth-dodging by even the most brilliant and wily of adverse witnesses.  It utilizes numerous video clips from three Q&A sessions where indisputably brilliant and indisputably wily Bill Clinton was cross-examined: on “60 Minutes;” in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case; and before Kenneth Starr’s grand jury.  Clinton’s politics (and everybody else’s) are irrelevant to the webinar’s teaching points, thus they are completely ignored.  He was selected here because on each of these three occasions he was extremely well prepared, extremely well represented, and extremely motivated to dodge and deceive … and was pretty damn successful at both. You’ll not likely depose a more challenging “fact” witness anytime soon. (See Reviews.)

This webinar has 5 parts/5 videos. Total viewing time: approx. 6.5 hours. The agenda for each part is set out below. Links to the written materials – a 102-page PDF & a 53-page PDF – appear below each of the videos. To sample the quality of the videos – and the quality of the teaching – watch the webinar’s first 30 minutes in the below YouTube.

Webinar (all 5 parts): $0

   I agree that the webinar will be viewed by one attorney only.

Major Dramatis Personæ:

Steve Croft, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, Jim Fisher, Paula Jones, Kenneth Starr, Solomon Wisenberg, Robert Bittman, Jackie Bennett & Robert Bennett

Minor Dramatis Personæ (many are very minor):

Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Patrick Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame, Sigmund Freud, Günter Grass, Robert McNamara, Francis Wellman, Jon Stewart, Ruth Westheimer, Grover Cleveland, William Rehnquist, Charles Dickens, William McKinley, Newt Gingrich, Chris Wallace, Kenneth Gormley, “Vitruvian Man,” Francis Ford Coppola, David Brock, Anita Hill, Sam Donaldson, Susan Webber Wright,Linda Tripp, Michael Isikoff, “Vox,” “Leaves of Grass,” Kathleen Willey, Betty Currie, Hugh Grant, “Scylla & Charybdis,” Sir Walter Scott, Jim Lehrer, George Will, David Kendall, Vernon Jordan, Asa Hutchinson, Bill Richardson, “Forrest Gump,” Christopher Hitchens, & Sidney Blumenthal

Agenda for Part 1

  • “Truth is the engine of our judicial system.”
  • The prevalence of deposition deception
  • Introduction of Case #1: the “60 Minutes” Q&A
  • “Word-hawking”
  • Seminar-long assumptions
  • Case #1 video … what dodging do you hear?
  • The tricky verb “to know”
  • Dodgy pronouns and other dodgy stand-ins vs. “The Real McCoy”
  • Self-serving word choices and trial-worthy lines of attack
  • Seminar’s choice of real-life “Artful Dodger”
  • “The Three Profundities”:
  • Trial is argument.
  • Deposition is trial.
  • Thus, deposition is argument

Agenda for Part 2

  • The factual background of Case #2: the Paula Jones litigation
  • The importance of deposition admonitions to crafting arguments
  • The 3 responsive answers to “yes/no” questions
  • Crafting questions that seek the truth or a falsifiable lie
  • Belt and suspenders redundancy in interrogatory-like questions
  • Attacking Dodger’s numerical range answers
  • Leading questions
  • Firewalling adverse deponent’s claims
  • Mind’s eye & mind’s ear database of memory
  • Cross-examiner’s use of risk-crafting words
  • Attacking Dodger’s numerical range answers
  • Timing key lines of attack to avoid coaching breaks

Agenda for Part 3

  • Introduction of Case #2, part #2
  • Scylla and Charybdis
  • Attacking Dodger’s “I don’t remember”
  • “General” recollection vs. “specific” recollection
  • All the reasons why not to video Dodger’s depo

Agenda for Part 4

  • Dealing with Dodger’s filibustering answers
  • Making Dodger responsible for his attorney’s factual representations
  • Introduction of Case #3: Kenneth Starr’s grand jury
  • The importance of the deposition admonitions to combating obstructionism
  • Making the implied express
  • Keeping score of Dodger’s memory successes & failures

Agenda for Part 5

  • Cross examiner letting the cat out of the bag
  • Establishing the precise limits of Dodger’s memory
  • Hearing the “maybe” words and phrases
  • Establishing Dodger’s relationship to the “forgotten” subject
  • Dangerous for Dodger to dodge good values
  • Attacking necessity posing as virtue
  • Witness running out the “deposition clock” with windy responses