Archived: Great Adverse Depositions: Principles & Principal Techniques

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Great Adverse Depositions:
Principles & Principal Techniques

(a program for individual litigators)

Webinar (all 5 parts): $0

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

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
Read the FAQ…
  • California CLE credit
  • CLE credit re other states
  • tips for viewing webinar
  • viewing time limits