Anthony J. Bocchino - The Deposition Tutorial: Questions, Answers, Tactics, Demonstrations

ADVANCE PRAISE FORTHE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL

THE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL is a superb, innovative, and much-needed contribution to the library of materials available to those teaching and learning the vital skills of deposition-taking and defending. Its particular strengths that distinguish it from all other primers on the topic include:

The authors recognize, and adapt their tutorial methods to, the reality that almost no civil cases are taken to trial. Litigation is now trial by deposition, which significantly affects the skills, methods, and strategies the modern deposition-taker must master.

By use of a representative fictional case file threaded through the book, with a variety of illustrative examples of transcript excerpts, the tutorial takes the reader through an actual deposition. The result places the reader in a real life deposition setting.

The format is equally useful as a self-taught tutorial for newer lawyers / refresher for experienced litigators as for a more traditional training program where instructors lead participants through exercises using the case file.

The book is short and to the pointeminently as usable as a quick reference tool as for a complete deposition course of study.

Thomas Jay Leach & Cary A. Bricker,

Pacific McGeorge School of Law

Bocchino and Sonenshein continue their mastery of the importance of deposition use and strategy in this new and insightful book. In addition to asking and answering the questions that new (and sometimes not-so-new) lawyers and law students ask about traditional deposition practice, they have recognized that depositions have become the new trial experience, important for the purpose of persuading opposing clients, their attorneys and neutrals that pretrial disposition is an alternative that is better than a trial to a jury or an ADR panel. This should be required reading for all litigators not just trial lawyers.

Laurence M. Rose

Professor Emeritus and Director of the Litigation Skills Program

University of Miami

President of NITA (2006-2010)

Depositions arent what they used to be, as the very nature of litigation has been transformed in the age of the vanishing trial. Bocchino and Sonenshein have perfectly captured the ways that deposition practice must be adapted for the new environment, making THE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL a must-read for every twenty-first century lawyer.

Steven Lubet

Williams Memorial Professor

Director, Bartlit Center for Trial Advocacy

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

The modern deposition is not one destined for use at trial; the odds are it will be the tool for summary judgment or some form of alternative dispute resolution process. Lawyers must rethink deposition practice to accommodate this reality. In THE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL, David Sonenshein and Tony Bocchinomasters of the law of Evidence, of Civil Procedure, of civil litigation, and of trial advocacyteach the art and skill of the modern deposition, supplementing insight and analysis with examples derived from a model case file. What at first seems counterintuitivee.g., disclosing your case when you defend a depositionis just one of the invaluable insights this text offers.

Professor Jules Epstein

Director of Advocacy Programs

Temple Beasley School of Law

Tony Bocchino and David Sonenshein have written a wonderfully accessible book. Its perfect for a law school class, in-house training, or a lawyer wanting to learn to take depositions as they should be taken in a world where almost every case resolves before trial. I will be recommending it to every early career litigator I knowand to more than a few older ones.

Donald Beskind

Professor of Law

Duke University

Seldom does there come along a book that can help you transform the way you take and defend depositions. THE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL is such a book.

The authors incorporate insights from modern practice into a more efficient and effective strategy that can help you pin down your opposing deponent, test your theories, and produce damning admissions. They show you how to mine electronic discovery and social media to prepare yourself for the most important points of discovery and attack. They give real world and specific examples of the most effective questioning techniques for setting up dispositive motions in your favor.

This book will also help you prepare your witnesses to present their best facts, see your opponents attacks before they are sprung and avoid the mistakes and falling victim to gotchas that your opponent might have at their disposal. Again the authors provide specific and real world techniques for witness preparation that will help your witnesses stay in control and best manage their telling of their good facts, and at the same time, will provide them the means for avoiding their volunteering of bad facts that the opponent likely has yet to discover.

The authors expertise in evidence and civil procedure, remind you and explain the important legal provisions to help you deal both with difficult opponents, but also prepare you for any legal issues that arises from your depositions that make their way to the court.

Paul Zwier

Professor of Law

Emory University School of Law

THE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL:

QUESTIONS, ANSWERS, TACTICS,

DEMONSTRATIONS

THE DEPOSITION TUTORIAL:

QUESTIONS, ANSWERS, TACTICS,

DEMONSTRATIONS

Anthony J. Bocchino

Feinberg Professor of Litigation Emeritus

Temple University Beasley School of Law

David A. Sonenshein

Feinberg Professor of Litigation Emeritus

Temple University Beasley School of Law

2018 National Institute for Trial Advocacy

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ISBN 978-1-60156-791-8 (print)

eISBN 978-1-60156-792-5 (eBook)

FBA1791

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bocchino, Anthony J., author. | Sonenshein, David A., author.

Title: The deposition tutorial : questions, answers, tactics, demonstrations / Anthony J. Bocchino, Feinberg Professor of Litigation Emeritus, Temple University Beasley School of Law; David A. Sonenshein, Feinberg Professor of Litigation Emeritus, Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Description: Boulder, CO : National Institute for Trial Advocacy, [2018].

Identifiers: LCCN 2018033322 (print) | LCCN 2018034014 (ebook) | ISBN 9781601567925 (ebook) | ISBN 9781601567918

Subjects: LCSH: Depositions--United States--Miscellanea. | Evidence (Law)--United States--Miscellanea. | Trial practice--United States--Miscellanea.

Classification: LCC KF8900 (ebook) | LCC KF8900 .B579 2018 (print) | DDC 347.73/6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033322