When it comes to depositions, attorneys always have a goal in mind. Whether it’s your accident lawyer in Jacksonville questioning another witness or the opposing counsel questioning you, there is always a purpose to how they ask questions. Here are some things to keep in mind regarding attorney questions:
• Open-ended questions are used by your accident lawyer in Jacksonville to get information from a witness;
• Leading questions, on the other hand, might be used by your accident lawyer in Jacksonville to pin a witness down to a specific answer;
• Either way, your accident attorney in Jacksonville will try to keep questions relatively short; and
• Your accident lawyer in Jacksonville might also try to keep each question self-contained and not dependent on other questions.
Sometimes even the best accident attorney in Jacksonville will begin to ask the wrong question or phrase a question incorrectly, requiring him to start over. If a lawyer begins to ask a question but changes his mind, he can tell the reporter to “strike that” and begin again. He can also ask the witness for permission to do so, so that the witness understands that a new question is beginning.
Don’t Think You’re Smarter Than the Lawyer
Some witnesses go into depositions thinking that they will outsmart the accident attorney in Jacksonville who is deposing them. Maybe they have seen TV shows and movies where this happens and the lawyer is caught completely off-guard and has to rest their case. However, deposition is neither the time nor the place for that.
The reason for this is that the purpose of the deposition is different from questioning done at trial. At deposition, your accident lawyer in Jacksonville is just trying to get information about the case. He is interested in finding out what the witness knows, what the other side will try to claim as part of their defense and what the witness is willing to admit. This is different from cross-examination at trial where the lawyer is deliberately trying to push a witness toward a specific answer.
This means that the witness will not have any chance to “outsmart” your accident lawyer in Jacksonville. Any attempts do so will likely just seem like the witness is evading, misleading or even lying. Lying during deposition is likely to be caught later because the discovery process will continue and your lawyer will be able to check everything the witness said.
Don’t go into your deposition unprepared. Get help from an accident lawyer in Jacksonville. Call John Fagan Accident Lawyers at 904-278-1000.
