If you are worried about deposing your opponents’ expert witness, you have good reasons to be. However, if you prepare yourself with the right strategies, it will be very easy for you to flush them out before you even make it to trial. In this article, you will learn some tips from the experts and legal advisors on how to make the right moves when deposing an expert witness.
Always think about the audience
As an attorney it will become easier and easier for you to depose experts and speak at their level in order to impeach their opinions they offer based on facts and data. Most of the time, your audience will be a jury so you should keep things very simple without assuming anything. Make the fiduciary duty expert witness explain themselves in easy words using examples so the audience will have an easy time understanding what they are talking about. If possible, the expert witness should speak at the high school level because this is probably a field that a lot of people have no idea about.
Do not take the expertise for granted
When you are deposing an expert witness, it is imperative for you to enquire based on that testimony. It is very important for you to get to the bottom of the expertise of the expert witness and how much information they know about the topic. It is not uncommon for them to know very little about what the topic is all about. They need to be an actual expert in the field.
Know exactly where that expert witness stands
It is your job to learn as much as you possibly can about that expert witness, and the subject they will testify on. If it is possible that you will need to have strategies that will help, you impeach that testimony based on contradictions they have made in previous cases. Research the cases that they have been on and find information they have talked about. Use their own words to undermine their credibility as an expert on your case.
Try to become an expert yourself
Gather information about the profession so you can have enough knowledge yourself. As a good lawyer, you should be a student to learn the profession so you can easily depose that expert and win the case. You can actually go to the lengths of hiring another expert to review the opinions and testimony you anticipate from the witness. They will help you understand everything you need and guide you through your deposition.
Do some investigations
Before you do a deposition on an expert witness, it is your duty to carry out research on whether they are qualified to testify in court on that exact topic. When you find something that indicates they are not qualified enough to testify as an expert, you can call them out and destroy their credibility.
Conclusion
These are some of the things you have to do when deposing an expert witness. It doesn’t have to be hard as long as you follow to your strategies and look for the right information.