For the Attorneys
- Review the facts of your case and who the witnesses are.
- Once you know what law is for your case, you need to review and organize the facts in a way that will help you prove your case. To do this, keep the following in mind:
a. Which witnesses are most helpful to your side of the case? Why are they most helpful?
b. Which facts weaken the other side's story? To help you prove your side of the story, you will also
want to show all the weaknesses in the other side's case.
i. That its evidence is not reliable (i.e., that a witness may be mistaken or lying)
ii. That its evidence does not make sense
iii. That its evidence does not prove anything
iv. That there are facts which make its story less believable
- Talk with each witness to see if there are any additional facts that can be reasonably extrapolated from his/her statements, and make sure that the witnesses haven't changed their statement.
- Write out the questions that you will ask your witnesses on direct examination. Make sure that your questions are aimed at the facts you find important to your case, yet still allow the witness to tell their story.
- Find the flaws in your witnesses' statements. It is imperative that you work these flaws out and come up with a reasonable explanation for the flaw.
- In order to prepare for cross-examination, try to understand what the opposing side might use when presenting their case. Create generic questions that you can use in order to exploit the flaws in their case. However, be flexible; you cannot be certain what the opposing witness will say. It is important that you are ready for anything.
- Understand both your witnesses' and the opposing team witnesses' fact statements. If you are able to understand the whole picture, and comprehend details, you will be better prepared to respond to the testimony of witnesses.
- Think about how you are going to present your side of the story. Remember that a trial is like a story in which you tell the jury your side of what happened. In order to have the jury care about your side of the story, it needs to care about your client and the other witnesses that support your side.