Robert Musante: Combating the Artful Dodger

When:  Dec 28, 2015 from 09:00 AM to 04:30 PM (ET)
Featuring:
Robert Musante

About The Program:

This seminar teaches how to recognize and attack question-dodging and truth-dodging by even the most brilliant and wily of adverse witnesses. It utilizes numerous video clips from three Q&A sessions where indisputably brilliant and indisputably wily Bill Clinton was cross-examined: on “60 Minutes,” in the Paula Jones case, and before Kenneth Starr’s grand jury. Clinton’s politics (and anybody else’s) are irrelevant to the seminar’s teaching points, thus they are completely ignored. He was selected because on each of these three occasions, he was extremely well prepared, extremely well represented, and extremely motivated to dodge and deceive … and pretty damn successful at both. You’ll not likely depose or cross examine a more challenging “fact” witness anytime soon.

Our program is presented by Robert Musante, the nation's foremost teacher of deposition cross-examination. He has taught the logic essential to conducting killer cross examinations or adverse depositions – of fact witnesses and experts – to more than 45,000 litigators in 42 states. He has made in-house presentations to the attorneys-general of 11 states and to the partners and associates of 80+ litigation law firms.

Program Agenda:
9:00 • “Truth is the engine of our judicial system.”
• The prevalence of deposition deception
• Introduction of Case #1: the “60 Minutes” Q&A
• Definition of “word-hawking”
• Seminar-long assumptions
• Case #1 video ... what dodging do you hear?
• The tricky verb “to know”
• Dodgy pronouns and other dodgy stand-ins vs. The McCoy
• Self-serving word choices and trial-worthy lines of attack
• Seminar’s choice of real-life “Artful Dodger”
10:00 Break
10:10 • “The Three Profundities”:
    - Trial is argument.
    - Deposition is trial.
    - Thus, deposition is argument.
• The factual background of Case #2: the Paula Jones litigation
• The 3 responsive answers to yes/no questions
• The importance of the deposition admonitions to crafting arguments
• The truth vs. the falsifiable lie
11:20 Break
11:30 • Belt and suspenders redundancy in interrogatory-like questions
• Firewalling adverse witness/ deponent’s claims
• Mind’s eye & mind’s ear database of memory
• Cross-examiner’s use of risk-crafting words
12:30 Luncheon
1:30 • Attacking Dodger’s numerical range answers
• Timing key lines of attack to avoid coaching breaks
• Introduction of Case #2, part #2
• Attacking Dodger’s “I don’t remember”
• “General” recollection vs. “specific” recollection
• Keeping score of Dodger’s memory successes & failures
2:50 Break
3:00 • Dealing with Dodger’s filibustering answers
• Making Dodger responsible for his attorney’s factual representations
• Introduction of Case #3: Kenneth Starr’s grand jury
• The importance of the admonitions to combating obstructionism
• Establishing the precise limits of Dodger’s memory
• Establishing Dodger’s relationship to the “forgotten” subject
• Attacking necessity posing as virtue
• Witness running out the “clock” with windy responses
4:30 Adjourn

CLE Credits:
NJ CLE information: This program has been approved by the Board on Continuing Legal Education of the Supreme Court of New Jersey for 7.3 hours of total CLE credit.

NJ CLE :

 This program has been approved for 7.3 credits (50 minute hour)
PA CLE: 6.0 substantive credits pending ($24 fee – separate check payable to NJICLE must be submitted at the end of the program)

NY CLE (nt):

 7.0 professional practice credits

Door Registration: $320
S33900F5

Location

1 Constitution Sq.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901