8:30a.m.-10:00a.m.

• Case theory (strategic vision) defined.
• Case theory tactically implemented pre-trial.
• Deposition: impact on case outcome.
• "Battleships": the checklist of recurring questions for recurring issues.
• Requirement for mastery of "Battleships."
• When major "real-time" pre-trial litigation talent is crucial.
• Deposition cross-examination: an intellectually rigorous discipline.
• Participants' universal depo cross rules.
• "Grand Unified Theory" of civil litigation.
• Brilliant litigators and mediocre adverse depositions.
• "Whack!" defined and demonstrated.
• Five advantages: "To savor or squander; that is the question."
• Intro of "The Magnificent Seven."
• When to ask leading questions.
• "Rule of reason" exceptions to leading questions.
• When the truth is not nearly enough.

10:00a.m. - 10:10a.m. BREAK

10:10a.m. - 11:20a.m.

• Bluffing deponent into an admission.
• Escapes from a leading question.
• Use of rhetoric in depositions.
• Maximizing the lie.
• Transforming the implied into the express.
• Firewalling introduced.
• Interrogatory-like questions.

11:20a.m. - 11:30a.m. BREAK

11:30a.m. - 12:30p.m.

• Eschewing sesquipedalian and obscurantic lexicon.
• Use of universal terms and the "limbo bar."
• Looping the "good" answer.
• The "sacred" orthodoxy: saving impeachment for trial, its rationale.
• The universe of escapes from the "lie" impeachment.

12:30p.m. - 1:30p.m. LUNCH

1:30p.m. - 2:50p.m.

• The "Whole Nine Yards" question & the "98% solution."
• The "transfer of information" rule and the one "stupid" question.
• High school "grammar" & great depo-cross

2:50p.m. - 3:00p.m. BREAK

3:00p.m. - 4:30p.m.

• The "Needle and the Haystack" answer.
• Getting opposing side to cooperate with cross-examiner.
• Glossarizing "spaceholder" answers.
• Conducting interviews vs. taking depositions (and a "test").
• Coda.

4:30p.m. ADJOURN

8:30a.m. - 10:00a.m.

• Introduction
• Primer: an adverse deposition's logic and lingo
• "The Magnificent Seven": the means to the end
• 25 attacking -and supporting- credibility arguments
• Three types of admissions: "virtue," necessity, and forced
• Overview to the "not-reasonables"
• Witness's action not reasonably consistent with knowledge/motivation

10:00a.m. - 10:10a.m. BREAK

10:10a.m. - 11:20a.m.

• Witness unreasonably deviated from a practice
• Witness unreasonably deviated from precedent or subsequent
• Witness not reasonably knowledgeable
• Witness not reasonably considering
• Witness not reasonably reasoning

11:20a.m. - 11:30a.m. BREAK

11:30a.m. - 12:30p.m.

• Witness not reasonably motivated
• Witness not reasonably emotional
• Witness not reasonably remembering

12:30p.m. - 1:30p.m. LUNCH

1:30p.m. - 2:50p.m.

• Witness's memory too-good-to-be-true
• Witness's characterization unreasonably overstated/understated
• Witness's values failed the "good citizenship" test
• Witness engaged in question-dodging
• Witness admitted to (inconsistent) statements
• Witness physically unable to perceive the subject

2:50p.m. - 3:00 p.m. BREAK

3:00p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

• Witness unable to understand the subject
• Witness's motive to deceive
• Witness rebutted by external-source evidence
• Witness insufficiently corroborated by external-source evidence
• Witness tainted another witness or exhibit
• Witness tainted by another witness or exhibit
• Witness's unconvincing manner of testifying
• Five more implausibles: good luck, bad luck, skill, ineptitude, & coincidence
• The untrustworthy source

4:30pm. ADJOURN