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Witness Preparation & Witness Strategy

Witnesses are a trial attorney's greatest resource.  They make or break trials.  Their testimony at deposition can change the entire trajectory of a settlement negotiation.  
 
Too often attorneys see witnesses as chess pieces, mouthpieces, or "students" to be educated in the game of cross-examination cat-and-mouse.  Poorly prepared witnesses often get overwhelmed and melt down, or have the nervous ticks their attorney set out to cure in them amplified.
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Using an approach that has been honed over 40 years, we pull from the fields of psychology, improv theater, communication studies, and education.  We don't teach the witness to "do what she is told" or memorize and apply a set of rules. Instead we show the witness through rehearsal, dialogue, and exploration of how she thinks and learns how to overcome her fears, minimize her weaknesses, and weaponize her strengths.
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We also work with the attorney to teach her how to interact with the witness so that the witness's style of learning is taken into account, her fears are alleviated, and the barriers between her and a clean, honest, powerful testimony are eliminated.  Working with the attorney we also examine questions like when certain witness should be called in the arc of the case, what facts should and should not be presented through various witnesses, and how the attorney can use narrative to turn weaknesses into strengths.
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