Direct examinations

kaliyama

Have my first direct examination coming up in a couple of weeks. I have plenty of resources in RL to turn to, but wondered what lawyers here (CoJoe,Runningman, who else?) use to prepare and stay organized. It's a particularly disorganized witness, so preparing them for questioning is going to be crucial too.

RUNN1NGMAN

Heh, I'm still in law school and am woefully inexperienced in trial practice. I'm taking trial advocacy this semester though! I'm sorry I can't offer any good advice.

As far as the witness being disorganized, I guess I would try and figure out some creative ways of leading them without asking blatantly leading questions.

IronSunrise

The most basic advice may be the most helpful - *repeatedly* prepare your witness. Spend 3 sessions, equivalent in length to the expected examination, to go over q/a. Bring an associate to write down their impressions and/or record the sessions. Regardless of how comfortable or not you are with the format and setting, no one outside of law is comfortable without explicit training. The most basic things - like repeated rephrasing of questions - can drive "normal" people into saying the oddest things.

(Advice coming essentially second hand, for I'm not an attorney but someone who's been peripherally involved in many cases and anticipates being an expert witness fairly often in the future).

A Bear

Do you know anything about the opposing council? Do they know anything about you? I've been lucky enough to watch about a hundred of these things over the summer, and one of the bigger "X factors" in things running smoothly is how many monkey wrenches another lawyer wants to throw your way.

From what I saw, your preparation is going to be a lot about personal style and finding what works for you. I saw lawyers read right out of binders, keep notes on legal pads, or others wing it with nothing at all at all. Having never done one myself, I can't help you directly.

Watch out for the thin line between preparing your witness, and overcoaching.

But again, just a law student here, with no real experience to speak of.

Herkimer

Prep your witness: don't get surprised by their testimony.
Anticipate possible objections to your questions/your witness' testimony and prepare your responses.
Know the facts cold.
If you can do some sort of mock trial beforehand, some lawyers find that helpful.
Stay as relaxed as you can.

Teletheus

It's a little hard to give specific advice without more information about what kind of case this is for, but if your witness is disorganized, it'll probably be helpful to stick to a form as much as possible. I wouldn't write questions down and read them verbatim, but you probably want to keep the telling of events as chronological as possible.

Be especially careful to avoid leading questions, too, since a disorganized witness is more likely to have problems or be confused after an objection. Stick to reporter questions. Who, what, where, when, why, and how. If you start every question with one of those words, some less-aware attorneys will just let the questions go (even if they get to be a bit leading).

RepoMan1023

From my experience (expert witness testimony), the direct examinations usually go pretty smoothly. Both sides know what the facts are and they expect the witness to spit it out some how or another. Just make sure you have an idea of what information you want out there and try to steer your witness towards it. Go slowly and repeat back what was said to keep the witness's train of thought from derailing. If it really gets bad, maybe consider going the hostile witness route so you can ask some leading questions.

p.s. It's the cross examinations that really mess up new attorneys. Really pay attention to what the opposition is asking and remember to follow up if needed.

fightinfilipino

remember you can use ANYTHING to refresh a witness' recollection.

you can't give a witness a copy of their diary, for example, but you can show them the diary and ask them if it helps jog their memory. you could show the witness a dead trout if it would somehow jog his or her memory.

if the witness is disorganized, try to think of questions that can act as good guideposts for the witness. ask the questions in some kind of logical order, so even if the witness him or herself doesn't testify all that clearly, the judge will understand what's going on, and the jury (hopefully) will follow along.

and if there's something you want on the record, GET IT ON THE RECORD. get the witness to answer specific questions you know for sure you want recorded!