Skillful Witness Examinations in Civil and Arbitration Cases

he authors' approach to conveying effective examination techniques is built upon a richly developed illustrative commercial dispute, which will ensure that these techniques are concretely demonstrated through references to a meaningful set of facts. Some twenty-four carefully drawn transcript excerpts are interspersed throughout the text to illustrate the practical application of effective examination techniques, all based on the case example.

A few selections from the detailed table of contents indicate the range and uniqueness of this work:

• A “Golden Rule” – Be Ready to Question off the Last Answer
• “Time Bombs”
• The Feckless Word “Recall”
• The Improper Leading Question Is Asked and the Damage Is Done – Now What?
• Three Foundational Concepts – Credibility, Control, and Confrontation
• Climbing the Rungs to an Admission or an Incredible Denial
• Tools of the Trade
• You Are Cross-Examining the Affiant, not the Affidavit
• The Basis of Control: Cementing the Expert In

In addition to enhancing the library of any litigator, Skillful Witness Examinations in Civil and Arbitration Cases will serve as a refreshingly new foundation for internal and external CLE trial practice programs.

Extract from Foreword

Robert Harrison and Richard Swan have been among the most skilled advocates and teachers of advocacy in our profession… Now Bob and Richard have brought their expertise and experience to bear by producing a terrific book on how to examine witnesses, titled Skillful Witness Examinations in Civil and Arbitration Cases.

Bob and Richard do not just tell trial advocates what to do; they show them how to do it….They demonstrate their advice by extensive excerpts of hypothetical examinations, again all grounded in the fact situation outlined at the beginning of the book. These demonstrations are key to why their book is different and better than other books in the field. Bob and Richard recognized – correctly in my view – that “communicating the skills and approach to effective examinations is more readily absorbed and understood with the benefit of illustrative reference to a recurring set of facts.”

I congratulate Bob and Richard on Skillful Witness Examinations in Civil and Arbitration Cases. Trial lawyers, young and not so young, law students, teachers of trial advocacy, and even trial judges owe them a debt of gratitude for their marvelous text.

Hon. John I. Laskin; retired Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal