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The discovery process precedes the holding of a trial for a specific personal injury case. During that process, the deposition provides the lawyers with a chance to chance to gather more evidence.
How lawyers can use the added evidence
• Add to the amount of available evidence, pertaining to the plaintiff’s case
• Learn how it might be possible to collect even more evidence
• Learn the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent’s argument.
• Search for evidentiary material that could support an allegation of negligence
What individuals have a role to carry out, during the discovery process?
Process server: He/she delivers a subpoena to those that must testify at a scheduled deposition.
Court recorder: The recorder keeps a record of what has been said by the different witnesses.
An injury lawyer in Cambridge for the plaintiff, and one for the defendant, as well. A judge would not have a role to play, during the deposition. A judge would not rule on the appropriateness of any objection, during a that pre-trial process.
What information does the process server share with those that must testify at a deposition?
The date and time for that deposition
The location for that same process
What are the facts that the recipient of a subpoena should note?
Each recipient has the right to request modifications to the subpoena. Any answer to a lawyer’s question should be as short as possible. Lawyers encourage witnesses to give a longer answer, in hopes that he/she might reveal a significant, and previously unknown fact.
No witness should create a barrier between him/her and the questioner/lawyer.
—The act of placing arms over the chest represents creation of a barrier.
—The act of crossing the legs represents creation of a barrier.
Witnesses should not let their hand movements, or their facial expressions display their nervousness, while testifying.
—The act of twisting the hair serves as an indicator of the extent of the witness’ nervousness.
—The act of playing with a ring could clue an attorney in to the fact that a given witness was nervous.
—Witnesses should learn how to direct their eyes, when sitting on the witness stand speaking to an attorney. It is best to focus on a point between the listener’s nose and chin.
—It is not necessary to give a quick answer. No one should be penalized, if a given witness has paused, before answering an attorney’s question.
—No witness has a legal obligation to produce an answer every question. All witnesses have the right to tell the questioner that their memories do not contain a sufficient amount of information, with respect to the event that a given question has addressed.