Depositions are the single most important part of the discovery process, which is the portion of a civil lawsuit where each party gets to probe every other party in the case to determine the respective strengths and weaknesses of each party’s claims and defenses. (Think of it like poker, except you get to see everyone else’s hand before you finalize your bet.)

The strength of your deposition testimony could alter the entire outcome of a lawsuit. It could severely strengthen or weaken the case for the party on whose behalf you would be testifying. If so, it may well prompt a settlement prior to trial or become key testimony if the case goes to trial. If the case is tried, depositions become a pivotal and vital weapon in the hands of trial lawyers.

Your deposition testimony, which will have been taken down verbatim by a court reporter during your depositions (assuming you are deposed more than once). At trial, attorneys for the opposing parties use the transcripts of depositions to make sure witnesses sticks to the same story they told in their depositions. If witnesses alter even one fact to which they testified during their depositions, the opposing party’s attorney will pounce on that alteration in an attempt to plant the seed in the jury’s mind that the witnesses are not credible, not telling the truth, and are not trustworthy.

Nowadays, depositions are almost always videotaped. So, in addition to attorneys whipping out the typed transcript of depositions at trial, they also cue up the video and show the jury what the witnesses said in their depositions when answering a question or questions that is different than the answers they just gave at trial to the same questions.

You can see why depositions are such stressful events. Attorneys are well aware of this fact and capitalize on it. If witnesses are not adequately prepared for depositions they can be easily exploited by the lawyer or lawyers taking the depositions. If you have a deposition or depositions coming up, you would be wise to make sure your lawyer spends a lot of time explaining exactly what to expect and advising you on how to handle each and every scenario that may, and likely will, occur.

Deposition preparation videos are extremely useful tools to help educate yourself regarding the pitfalls and traps inherent in depositions and how to avoid them. For a superb example of such a video, please visit our website at www.depositionrescue.com.

Jeff L. Williams is a former trial attorney and co-founder of New Media Legal Publishing, Inc.