The Trial Practice Tips Weblog

This Year's Supplement to My Deposition Book: A Chapter on Breach of Contract

I've almost finished writing this year's supplement to my deposition book, Deposition Checklists and Strategies (James Publishing). This year I'll be adding a new, ninth chapter on breach of contract. It should be out in a few months.

The first eight chapters are these:

• Procedures and Strategies
• Vehicular Liability
• Premises Liability
• Products Liability
• Medical Malpractice
• Employment Cases
• Insurance Disputes
• Consumer Protection

For more information about the book, follow the link to my publisher's website.

Civility and Litigation

There's a good article about civility in this month's Illinois Bar Journal: "Uncivil Action," by Helen W. Gunnarsson.

Some tips from the lawyers interviewed for the article:

• It's a waste of time to try to outbully a bully; make a decision not to respond to incivility with incivility;
• You can't reform the small percentage of lawyers who use incivility as a litigation tool; those lawyers, though, will become known for their incivility, which will tend to make it harder for their strategy to work;
• Your own bad behavior will come back to bite you; always treat people with courtesy, even when they're inept at doing it themselves.

Here's my own tip: get more sleep. In my experience, many of the ugly outbursts I've witnessed at depositions, which often lead to apologies later, are caused by stress exacerbated by lack of sleep.

Don't Alienate the Judge

When dealing with the judge at trial, try your obsequious best never to show any hint of irritation or disrespect.

That's the advice of Martin L. Grayson, who writes in his excellent, readable book The View from the First Chair: What Every Trial Lawyer Really Needs to Know:

In my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes an attorney can make is alienating the judge. You will put yourself and your client at risk of losing every close call, having every request for continuance or extension of discovery procedures summarily denied and, worst of all, having the judge signal the jury at trial that you are not trustworthy.

Good advice.

Preparing Experts for Depositions: Tips

When preparing experts for depositions, consider giving them these tips: 

• When asked about an unfamiliar document, review it thoroughly before answering questions.
• Don't argue with the questioner--and don't joke either.  
• Don't answer a question unless you're certain you understand it.
• If you're asked the same question question twice during a deposition, make sure your answers are consistent.

For more ideas like these, see Expert Preparation, by Christian C. Mester, Trial May 2010.

The tips in this post are derived from Mester's article, which focuses specifically on preparing med-mal experts for their depositions.