Practice Management

Quit wasting depositions, deposition time, and deposition money.

By Dan Hull

Why use deposition time to learn things you can learn quickly and inexpensively from phone calls, libraries and even the most rudimentary Google search?

Before you schedule a deposition, do some informal investigation. Next time a new case begins, resist rushing into written discovery and depositions. Step back from the discovery routine--you'll get into that bubble soon enough--and learn a few things on your own.

Twenty years ago, James McElhaney, a gifted lawyer, writer and teacher of trial tactics, and the ABA Litigation Section, first published McElhaney's Trial Notebook, now in its fourth edition. Discovery, McElhaney noted, is a good way to learn what a witness will say, or to bind a party or witness to a particular version of the facts. But it is also "a very inefficient way to get information."

Let us add to that.

Formal discovery can be--and often is--an unimaginative, cookie-cutter, dumb-ass, straight-up lazy, and client-unfriendly way to learn things.

Think a bit on your own. Each deposition should suggest a unique set of background questions you can have answered (or partially answered) before you begin.

It's just a matter of curiosity and do-it-yourself "trolling" for information you and yours can get first-hand on your own. At a minimum, you'll have a better outline, a better deposition, and an adversary and deponent who knows you show up "ready to play".

Just as witnesses say unexpected and even startling things when they testify, useful and even surprising facts are available about opposing parties and witnesses through the Internet, court files, published cases, local boards and agencies, social clubs with websites, D&B reports, news archives, business libraries and even phone conversations other humans.

No, don't hire an investigator for this. You and your staff can handle this with a little verve and common sense.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on March 20, 2010 (boomark / email).