GREAT ADVERSE DEPOSITIONS:
PRINCIPLES AND PRINCIPAL TECHNIQUES
High-quality adverse depositions require the conscious and conscientious application of the integrated set of logical cross-examination rules. This seminar wastes no time on entry-level wisdom, code chatter, idiosyncratic war stories, or tired maxims. Instead, it teaches how to take adverse depositions as never before ... the one, right, logical way: as an intellectually rigorous discipline. SEE AGENDA
MASTERING THE TOUGHEST-TO-CRAFT
CREDIBILITY ARGUMENTS
Based on the logic that trial is argument; deposition is trial; thus deposition is argument ... there is no such thing as a "discovery" deposition. ALL depositions are trial depositions. In EVERY adverse deposition one of cross-examiner's central goals is to craft credibility arguments that settle cases and win trials. The focus of this seminar is a uniquely valuable – and entertaining – analysis of the most-difficult-to-master credibility arguments: The Un-Reasonables, which are vital to the execution of great adverse depositions and great trial cross-examinations. SEE AGENDA
THE ANATOMY OF A "SUPERSTAR" DEPOSITION:
DAVID BOIES VS. BILL GATES IN U.S. VS. MICROSOFT
A knock-your-eyes-out analysis of the awesome discipline of deposition cross-examination and of the intensely contentious three-day deposition taken by the country's most lauded civil litigator of the world's richest man in the most high profile civil case (excepting, perhaps, a certain 1997 wrongful death case in California) in your lifetime.
(Note: If you attended Great Adverse Depositions: Principles and Principal Techniques – and paid attention – the logic and several teaching points in this seminar should sound familiar. SEE AGENDA
ATTACKING THE EXPERT'S OPINION
There is one right, logical method with which to effectively attack the adverse expert's opinion at deposition … no matter the area of law, no matter the field of expertise. As never before, this seminar brilliantly elucidates that logical method and teaches the archetypal set of integrated questions that are at the heart of every great deposition (and every great trial cross-examination) of the witness who has been paid to screw your case theory. SEE AGENDA
ATTACKING THE EXPERT'S PEDESTAL
The adverse expert is typically the most dangerous witness and, at the same time, the most vulnerable. Most dangerous because he testifies cloaked in the mantle of the "unbiased scientist"; thus, his testimony – if accepted by the jury – can determine an issue, maybe the entire case. Yet, most vulnerable because, unlike the fact witness who must defend only his first-hand observations, the expert witness must defend his testimony from attacks on multiple fronts. This seminar analyzes and illustrates dozens of archetypal attacks against the adverse expert's pedestal-like status. SEE AGENDA
ATTACKING ADVERSE DEPONENT'S "I DON'T KNOW,"
"I DON'T REMEMBER," & "I DO REMEMBER"
To every adverse witness the answers that represent the Scylla and Charybdis of cross-examination, the perilous answers that the witness must dodge whenever possible, are the damning admission and the vulnerable-to-impeachment denial. To accomplish that dodge, the adverse witness, perhaps at the unethical urging of his attorney, most usually employs the tactic of responding to cross-examiner's "yes or no" questions with dishonest "maybe" answers: the "I don't know" or the "I don't remember." This seminar teaches how to best attack these toughest-to-successfully-attack answers ... whether at deposition or in trial.
(Time permitting, this seminar also explains the best attacks against the dishonest "I do remember" answer.) SEE AGENDA
COMBATING OBSTRUCTIONISM AT DEPOSITION
All across the country, obstructionism, including advantage-seeking gamesmanship, by the tag-team of adverse deponent (fact and expert alike) and opposing attorney is the bane of civil litigation … undermining cross-examiner's goal of crafting the clean deposition transcripts that are crucial to obtaining the favorable settlement or the trial victory. This one-of-a-kind seminar offers the comprehensive analysis of the techniques that best counter that obstructionism and gamesmanship. SEE AGENDA