Today I’d like to talk to you about being a good witness.

We’re trial lawyers and we handle personal injury cases and at one time or another, in your case, there’s a good chance that you will have to be a witness.

The first thing about being a good witness is quite simply you have to listen carefully to the question you are asked. As obvious as that sounds there is an art to listening. We want to start thinking about our answer before the person who is asking the question is done and you can not do that because it will be fatal to your case in a court room setting. You listen carefully focusing on the questioner until he has finished his question and his lips have stopped moving. Next you have to understand the question. If he asks a question that contains strange words you’ve never seen or heard before then it sounds like you’d better not try to answer that question. At that point there is only one correct answer, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question. Could you possibly ask it in another way?” A lot of people make the mistake of just saying “could you repeat that?” He could repeat it a thousand times and if you didn’t understand it the first time you won’t understand it any of the others.

The next pointer in this particular group of tips is simply to be honest and straight forward. After you’ve listened to the question and you understood the question, if the question is asked by anyone other than your lawyer keep it short and sweet. Answer with a yes or a no only. If it can’t be answered with a yes or no, answer with only as few words as possible just the question that is being asked. Don’t become a volunteer.

Now last tip in this film, do not under any circumstances let the other lawyer get you to say “I guess!” as an answer. If you do that you’ll going to destroy your credibility and your case. They will argue successfully that this person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. This person is a guesser. If they are guessing about one thing they can be guessing about everything.

I hope that this has been of some help and benefit to you. If you have additional questions give us a call at 1(610)265-8050