Page 66 - FDCC Deposition Drills

A FEW QUESTIONS TO DISCUSS
Why are short questions effective?
Why is it effective to have one question follow the next and so on? Why is cadence important?
Why is rhythm important?
Why is repetition important?
Deposition Drills How to Teach Deposition Skills
What Am I Wearing?
This exercise teaches how to ask leading questions, limiting each question to a single fact.
EXPLANATION
Participants learn to ask leading, short, serial questions.
EXERCISE
Stand in front of the participants and have them ask you leading questions about what you’re wearing. Each participant takes a turn asking a question followed by the next participant asking another question. Each question should be leading, address only one fact and lead from the last question and into the next potential question. Correct the participants each time they don’t follow these rules. The exercise would go like this:
◗ You’re wearing a dress shirt
◗ It’s white
◗ It has a collar
◗ Button down
◗ It has long sleeves
◗ With cufflinks with an emblem on them
from your alma mater
◗ And it has a pocket on the right side
Encourage the participants to ask as many questions as they can conceive for each article of clothing, stretching out the cross examination, while asking only leading questions and avoiding ending leading questions with tags such as “correct.” Have them work on their inflexion to turn statements into questions and encourage them to use as few words as possible for each question. Now, is an attorney ever going to ask a witness what they’re wearing during cross examination? No. But the exercise allows you to witness and correct other lawyers applying the rules of cross examination.
LESSONS LEARNED
This exercise teaches how to ask short questions, and ask them in a series.
60
©2021 Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel
SECTION 04 CROSS EXAMINATION