ATTACKING THE EXPERT'S OPINION
(presentations of 3 to 6.5 hours of teaching time)
8:30 - 10:00 a.m. (the 6.5-hour agenda)
- World-class expert introduced
- Overview: deposition logic applied to experts
- When attacks vs. expert should be played at deposition
- Cross-examiner's problems
- Expert's pedestal & expert's problems
- The structure of every opinion: O = R + 2F
- End point opinions, subordinate opinions, bedrock findings, & bedrock assumptions
- Critical listening skills (a quick test)
10:00 - 10:10 a.m. Break
10:10 - 11:20 a.m.
- The schematic every-case-forever chart introduced
- Five categories of expert opinions
- Two must-be-asked questions
- Ten types of expert rules
- X and Y factors defined
- Scientific vs. experiential rules (science vs. art)
11:20 - 11:30 a.m. Break
11:30 - 12:30 p.m.
- Non-expert rules and the cloak of expertise
- Expert's rule's essential factors ("necessary" and "sufficient")
- Expert's weighing process
- Critical listening skills (2nd quick test)
- Two incredibly important -and easy to master- techniques
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch
1:30 - 2:50 p.m.
- Attacks vs. expert's X factors
- The certainty scale and two archetypal arguments
- Six sources of assumptions
- Attacking expert's findings derived through expert methods
- Attacking expert's findings derived through non-expert methods
- Expert's self-anointed pedestal-status (3rd quick test)
2:50 - 3:00 p.m. Break
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
- Expert's three - and only three - attacks vs. Y factors
- Numerical hypothetical questions (bright line test vs. subjective grey)
- Freud vs. Frasier (expert's psychological insights)
- Occam's Razor. (the law of parsimony)
- Musaccam's Razor and the weak links in expert's opinion
- Attacking expert's double standard re career
- Attacking expert's double standard re case
- Coda: Don't squander the deposition of opposing expert