Advice on How to Testify

Jul 24, 2024 | Claims Process

Advice on How to Testify -If you’re involved in a lawsuit, one of the procedures you will be involved in is a deposition, which is a question-and-answer session between you and the opposing attorney.

Even though it might appear to be somewhat informal, it’s anything but that. A good opposition attorney might attempt to be disarming, warm, and friendly to you, they want to make you feel comfortable because that might catch you off guard, and everything said there will be for the court record.

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Rules for giving your deposition

Tell the truth
Juries associate with the witness. They have the popular misconception that all lawyers try to take advantage of witnesses, so keep this natural advantage.
Do not get angry. If you let the opposing attorney make you mad, the jury will stop sympathizing with you. Juries and judges expect witnesses to remain calm during interrogations because they believe truthful people are calm people.
Always treat the opposing attorney with the same respect with which you treat your attorney.

How to give a good deposition

Answer only the questions asked.
Answer truthfully, but nothing more, don’t volunteer information.
You are not obligated to guess the meaning of a question. Never interrupt the question. Wait until the question is completed, pause, take a deep breath, and then respond.

Rules of thumb to keep in mind

You may not know the answer to a question. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing the answer, simply you don’t know, you can only harm if you guess an answer.
There’s nothing wrong with not understanding a question, simply ask if the question can be rephrased.

Questions to be careful with

Compound question. An attorney puts two or more questions together, but part of the question is wrong. They may do it deliberately to entrap you because if you answer with a simple yes or no you would be agreeing to the wrong part. You should ask them to break it down.
Questions that assume facts that are not true. You can ask to have the question rephrased.
Attempts to get you to agree with a summary of your testimony. Never let the other lawyer put words in your mouth.

Other important concepts

In answering questions in a deposition don’t characterize your testimony. Don’t use phrases like “honestly”, “I’m doing the best I can” or “in all candor”. If you start an answer with the word “honestly”, is the jury to believe that the rest of your testimony was not honest? These are figures of speech used in everyday life, but they’re not appropriate for a deposition.

Avoid words like never and always. If the lawyer asks you if you’ve ever done a certain act and you say never, the lawyer will be able to attack your credibility if one exception is found.

At some point, the lawyer will ask you a question that requires you to tell them everything you know about a certain subject or everything you remember about a certain conversation or an event. They’re trying to get your full story, but they’re also trying to freeze your testimony so you will look like you’re lying if you remember any additional facts later.

In those cases, if you’re asked if there’s anything else you can remember, you can say that it’s difficult to try to remember everything that happened some time ago and there might have been something else, you can also ask if there is any records that can help you refresh your memory, that way, if you remember additional facts later, you won’t give a false impression of lying.