subject: Extra Techniques for How an Expert Witness Can Help Their Side of the Case during a Deposition [print this page] Extra Techniques for How an Expert Witness Can Help Their Side of the Case during a Deposition
Legal maneuvering begins much earlier than the trial itself. attorneys frequently file arguments or motions to the judge in almost every case. During the deposition, your own lawyer will occasionally object to a question. A phenomenally important piece of advice is: Stop talking if your retaining attorney makes an objection.
Get into the habit of pausing for one to two seconds before you begin any answer. This pause helps your lawyer because it gives him the time and the opportunity to object if he likes. If you are instructed not to answer, do not answer no matter what arguments the attorneys may get into.
sometimes you may not be able to attend the trial for which you have been preparing for many months or even years. The burden would then fall to your retaining lawyer to convince the judge that your deposition testimony should be admissible. Admissibility is a complicated legal arena. To help your attorney, and because of the increasing Importance of Daubert criteria, it becomes crucial that you make the effort to incorporate data about both relevance and reliability into your deposition testimony.
The key criteria, known to attorneys by the acronym PEAT, are important enough to repeat here for you:
* Can you cite any Peer-reviewed publication in which the methodology you selected has appeared?
* Does the methodology have any known Error rates?
* Is the methodology by and large Accepted in your field?
* Can you replicate the results if you repeat the Testing?
Answers to these questions are important, but are not sufficient. When you express your opinions in deposition, make clear that you used reliable methodologies to reach those opinions. Your testimony must also make clear that your methodologies and approach to your investigations are By and large accepted in your particular field. The Daubert and follow-on cases have helped to define admissibility of expert witness testimony. Your testimony must convince the court that your opinions flow logically from the findings based on your chosen methodologies. This could involve extra issues, such as whether the data used in your investigations and analyses were both qualitatively and quantitatively sufficient to justify your final opinions.
