Great Adverse Depositions: |
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Taking high-quality adverse depositions is the most important teachable litigation skill. Taking a high-quality adverse deposition requires the conscientious application of an integrated set of logical cross-examination rules, the very set of rules that law schools should have offered to their third-years in a full-semester course, and litigation law firms should have taught their newbies (and their partners) … but never, ever did! Thus, mediocre adverse depositions abound, while high-quality ones are a rarity. This webinar wastes no time on entry-level wisdom, code chatter, idiosyncratic war stories, or tired maxims. (That kind of stuff is best “learned” at pricey, 3-day, hands-on programs.) Instead, using engaging video clips from high-profile cross-examinations, this program brilliantly – and efficiently – teaches how to take adverse depositions the right way: as an intellectually rigorous discipline. (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. A link to the written materials – a 70-page PDF – appears 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.
The recording was made in 2013. The logic & lines of attack against adverse witnesses hasn’t changed since then … NEVER will. So, the teaching points are still valid … ALWAYS will be.

Agenda for Part 1
- Deposition cross-examination: an intellectually rigorous discipline
- “Battleships”: the checklist of recurring lines of inquiry in same-kind-of-case adverse depositions
- Four nearly-everybody-agrees deposition cross-examination rules
- “Grand Unified Theory” of deposition cross-examination
- The country’s #1 civil litigator deposing a brilliant adverse witness in a monumental case (the first of several video clips analyzed)
- The can’t-be-beat argument vs. “the stupidest orthodoxy”: saving attacks for surprise at trial
- “Whack!” defined & demonstrated in a high-profile trial cross-examination
- Seven advantages: deposition cross-examiner vs. trial cross-examiner
- The most important TEACHABLE aspect of civil litigation
Agenda for Part 2
- “The Magnificent Seven” … key rules of deposition cross-examination
- When to ask leading questions in deposition … or at trial
- Exceptions to the leading question rule
- When the truth is not nearly enough
- Bluffing deponent into an damaging admission
- 3 high-profile examples of deception (2 blue, 1 red)
- Using rhetoric to intensify argument
Agenda for Part 3
- Using rhetoric to intensify argument (continued)
- “Every” cross-examiner’s chief flaw re taking an adverse deposition
- Analysis of multiple video clips of America’s #1 civil litigator deposing that brilliant adverse witness in that monumental case
- An amateur cross-examiner using rhetoric … and doing it right!
- Firewalling introduced
Agenda for Part 4
- Firewalling and “ghost believers”
- Interrogatory-like questions
- Universal terms and nail-down terms
- A 3rd famous cross-examination analyzed
- Enumeration
- Looping
- Identifying a mediocre deposition in only 60 seconds
- Making the implied express: using lexicography
- Making the implied express: using logic
Agenda for Part 5
- The transfer of information rule
- The most common dumb deposition question
- Deposition “Crap” defined
- Attacking the narrow question & question-dodging with high school grammar
- Attacking 2 answers in 1 question
- Attacking the needle and the haystack answer
- Additional wisdom re saving impeachment evidence for surprise at trial
- Conducting interviews vs. taking great adverse depositions
- Coda
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