Re: [Venturing] Wave of the Future

At 09:47 -0500 on 9/30/1998, William H. Sills mailed [Venturing] Wave of
the Future:

>WaAVE OF THE FUTURE???
>>
>Dad- Where in the world did you learn to be such a smart
>mouth?

In fairness to all I must speak to the implicit assumption of that post:
common speech standards apply in Court. Not so. The nasty truth about
litigation is that it is based on the adversarial system. No one party in a
lawsuit does anything other than lose, if that party is fully forthcoming
at every step of the way.

Every lawyer worth his salt (and not wishing to be laid open to a lawsuit
for malpractice) tells his client the following several times before the
client is required to testify PRIOR to trial. It is evident that lawyer
Clinton, and lawyer Clintion's attorneys, all know the following rule.

"You will answer the question that is asked. You will not answer the
question which the fellow tried to ask. You will not answer the question
which the fellow should have asked. You will answer only the question he
did ask; you will answer it as narrowly as you can. It is up to him to ask
further questions if he wishes. You are not there to help him. You are
there to avoid to the greatest possible extent helping him. You will answer
the question that is asked, specifically, and no other question."

I commonly have met witnesses who have been advised to behave that way, and
witnesses who naturally behave that way. I thank God if I get an opposing
witness at a deposition that makes speeches in an effort to help me. I find
out things I would never otherwise have found out, that his attorney could
kill him for volunteering. A good attorney can pick up on a witness
parsing the questions with care, and will focus in. It lengthens things no
end, but the narrowly answering witness can be brought to admit things if
you work at it. Opposing counsel in the Jones depo and at the grand jury
did a very poor job of that. That is their fault, not the President's.

I would chew a client out, up and down, who did what people are saying the
President ought to have done. For better or for worse, the dialogue you
wrote out for the father and son and scratched car, is exactly the normal
expectation in deposition and court, and the father did a good job of
cross-examination as far as he went. <G> To hold out the family standard of
truthfulness as a role model for parties in litigation, is a form of
litigation unilateral disarmament.

=================================================
mailto:egburton@valint.net Do I have a Y2K Problem? No,
I've got a Mac. I've got a Year 29,940 A.D. Problem!

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message
• Previous message

What's become of SCOUTER Magazine, the print publication?

Buy the Back Issues