(In-house Presentations & Live Webinars)
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 program wastes no time on entry-level wisdom, code chatter, idiosyncratic war stories, or tired maxims. (That 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.)
Principal Discussion & Teaching Points:
- Civil Litigation §101: Best Case Theory
- “Battleships”: the indispensable checklist of recurring Q&A
- Four nearly-everybody-agrees deposition rules
- “Grand Unified Theory” of deposition cross-examination
- Discovery depositions vs. evidentiary depositions
- “Whack!” defined & demonstrated
- Seven advantages: deposition cross-examiner vs. trial cross-examiner
- When to ask leading questions in deposition … or at trial deposition
- Exceptions to the leading question rule
- Getting every adverse deponent to “yes” on every important Q
- Cross-examination decision-tree:
- lead to lie … when the truth is not nearly enough
- lead to truth … bluffing deponent
- Using rhetoric to intensify arguments & magnify risks
- Right technique & right logic vs. wrong! x 100s of Qs
- “Every” cross-examiner’s chief flaw re taking an adverse deposition
- An amateur cross-examiner using rhetoric right!
- Firewalling
- Interrogatory-like Qs
- Universal terms & nail-down terms
- Enumeration
- Looping
- Identifying a mediocre deposition in only 60 seconds
- Making the implied express: using lexicography
- Making the implied express: using logic
- The transfer of information rule
- The most common dumb deposition Q
- Deposition “Crap” defined
- Attacking the narrow Q & Q-dodging with high school grammar
- Attacking 2 answers in 1 Q
- Attacking the needle & the haystack answer
- Additional wisdom re saving impeachment evidence for surprise at trial
- Conducting interviews vs. taking great adverse depositions
- Coda