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Continued... Page 5 > Expert Witness at Trial Dr. D. S. may have been the best scientist in the narrow, technical sense of the word, but was routed badly in the face off against Dr. G. S., his smooth, silver-haired counterpart on the plaintiff's side. The Right Pace - Move It Along Smoothly Once the central casting aspect to expert witness selection is taken care of, the next critical issue for the trial lawyer to consider is the pace at which the expert testimony is presented. Law school has permanently warped our sensibilities and may even have damaged our brains as far as awareness of the importance of pace is concerned. The Socratic method teaches us to speak in obscure riddles rather than direct realities. However, jurors demand that we get to the point and that we get to it quickly. They are not participants in the court process on a daily basis, but only brief interlopers - two week travelers who will be back to their regular lives in short order. You must cater to their expectation, one of which is that you will be presenting testimony like they have seen on TV. In the long running but now defunct television show ìL.A. Law,î expert testimony in the courtroom scenes took no longer than two minutes for both direct and cross examination. It is amazing how much can be communicated in just two minutes. Expert testimony that drags on for hours is completely unacceptable to the average juror. One of your most important duties as a trial lawyer is to distill out those key points upon which the expert testimony depends and hit those hard and get out quickly. ER 705 has liberated the trial lawyer from the drudgery of putting in every detail which supports the expert's opinion. Yet, many trial lawyers act as though that evidentiary rule was not there, slogging through every minute liquid detail filling the swamp. Editing - Leave Out The Weaker Evidence The trial advocate must realize that persuasiveness is a function of editorial judgment - what details you leave in and what details you leave out. Adding weak or barely relevant evidence to your case for bulk value does not make your case stronger. Rather, like corrosive acid, it eats at the power of the persuasive evidence and dilutes the effect of your stronger evidence upon the jurors. In fact, some studies show that the presence of weak evidence causes the jurors to doubt the value of stronger evidence because they figure that something must be wrong with that stronger evidence, or the lawyer wouldn't be putting in all of this ìfiller.î Doctors and other experts who are college teachers tend to be better at explaining things to the jury. They have learned that the mark of a good teacher is to get the point across in the fewest possible words. In its most essential form, expert witness testimony is just another form classroom teaching, only the location is different - the courtroom. >>NEXT |
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