How to take an excellent one hour expert deposition.

My biggest pet peeve is waste of time legal events.  Depositions are at the top of the list.  Am forever tearing my hair out when a defense lawyer says to a seasoned expert:

Q           I’m assuming you’ve had your deposition taken before.

A            Hundreds of times.

Q           And you probably know the rules.

A            I do.

Q           Well, let me go over them with you just for the record.

Gaaah.  Why.  What is wrong with us as a profession.  Why are we wound so tight.  So self important.  So scared of making a mistake.  That we think we need to make a record of everything no matter how mundane.

Then of course the attorney will spend the next hour going through the witnesses’ resume. Even if they have deposed them dozens of times before.  Even if they could have gotten an exemplar deposition from a colleague.  Gaaah!

But it doesn’t end there.  The next scintillating line of questioning involves meticulously going thru the report.  Reading it into the record.  My gawd.  Make it an exhibit if you want.  But literally why are you paying an expert $1K an hour to have them read their report.  You already know everything they have written in the report. Because (news flash) they wrote it in their report.

Which brings me to the topic of taking an expert’s deposition in an hour.  Or less.  In fact, I’ve been on a roll lately.  And yes in multimillion dollar high stakes litigation.  Big huge impressive Harvard Yale Stanford types of hoity toity experts.  And others of the less stellar type.  This approach does not discriminate.  It works with all of them.

Kristin who often acts as the video recorder (she pushes the zoom button – an honor that we’ve had to fight for in court) likes to see how fast they can actually be.  45 minutes.  30.  And then there’s the other even better question: why inflict a death by a thousand cuts when you can fell them with a few well placed swoops of the blade. Let’s make this more engaging. More fun. More exciting. And so we have bets going: how long will it take for me to dismantle them. 

Isn’t this a better way to practice (rhetorical question – of course it is).

Here are the steps.

Part 1:  Get ready.

1.       Hopefully at least the day/night before, pull up the expert’s file which hopefully has been as meticulously groomed as Kristin does mine.  CV, billing statement, their files, report, prior deposition and trial transcripts should all be in there – study them.  Use AI to help search for what you need.

2.       Get on the internet – find their website.  I like to pull up their photo and bio.  Those with active practices, tend to list everything they should but don’t do when they act forensically.

3.       Figure out the points that you need to score.  There shouldn’t be too many of them.  Narrow down to the big ones and focus on them.  Keep some of the little ones just for fun if needed.

4.       What’s your theme.

5.       Pull together the evidence that’s coming into trial as exhibits which relate to the expert.

 Part 2: Make a PPT or other visual exhibit that has all the exhibits in it

 6.       Make a PPT.   This will be Exhibit 1 to the deposition and there will be no other exhibits.

7.       Pull everything you want to go over in the order you want it to go – into that PPT.

8.       Highlight things that you want to hone in on.

9.       For example, pull from the website, hone on things you are going to turn the screws on in their report, pull from learned treatises, stats, photos, diagrams, everything.

10.   Decide if this is going to be cross style or not.

11.   If not, then why are you taking the deposition.  Only take the deposition if you know why it will be useful and how.

Part 3:  Take the dep and do it as fast as you can.

12.   Fast is your friend.

13.   You have everything together in order, and don’t have to fuss around clicking on lots of different exhibits to share.  There is just one big excellent exhibit# 1.

14.   The expert will be off kilter – because you are not the typical catatonically paced droning deposition lawyer.

15.   Stay on mission.

16.   Get what you need then end it.

Here are some of the other benefits of taking an hour long deposition.  First, the transcript doesn’t cost as much as a 5 hour dep.  Second, your other experts have less to read (and charge less) in reviewing the transcript.  Third, you don’t need to spend a lot of time searching thru it and making huge deposition summaries when preparing for trial.

And finally, it is just better to spend most of your time preparing for the dep and less time actually taking it.

Photo: by me - prepared in advance for a dinner party in Maui.