Help Your Witness Give a Good Deposition

During these unusual times, most jury trials are out of the question, but depositions are still being taken, and witnesses therefore still need help to testify at their best.

One of the keys to a successful deposition is a witness’ attitude. Help your witness by offering the following suggestions: 

1. Tell the truth

No matter how painful, scary, or awkward it may be, tell the truth. Your attorney can deal with anything, as long as it’s your truth.

2. Trust your attorney

Your attorney knows the case better than anyone. Follow his/her guidance, not advice from YouTube, your family or your best friend. 

3. Be sincere

Leave your sarcasm, joking around, your ‘whatever’ postures, coyness, seductiveness or cuteness at home. Sincerity wins every time.

4. Be straightforward

Don’t be evasive or beat around the bush. Stick to the facts as you know them as closely as possible. 

5. Be accurate

Tell it like it is. Resist the temptation to over-state your case, dramatize or otherwise embellish.

There is, of course, much more to a successful deposition, but adopting the above tips will give your witness a solid foundation from which to testify.

The True Value of Computer Animation

Most cases don’t settle, or are very challenging to settle, and end up in trial because there are grey areas in the case - situations or testimony which can be interpreted in different ways. Computer animation is often thought of as an effective, albeit expensive, way to show events. Research tells us, however, that there is a much more compelling reason to use computer animation.

Computer animation makes your interpretation of the event or situation concrete. There is always flux, indeterminate issues within any accident or event reconstruction, which the opposing experts will argue at length. But once the jurors see and hear for themselves your version of said reconstruction, they are far more inclined to believe it. And computer animation is an easy, immediately understandable, way to present your belief of “what happened” in a way that makes it real.

That being said, the facts must be solidly incorporated into the animation. Jurors will pick at the slightest incongruence between the known facts (skid marks, length of surgical incision) and the animation, and the persuasiveness of your animation will be destroyed.