Depositions are the new trial.™

When a deposition is the wrong tool, and what to use instead.

Most lawyers depose everyone they can. This module makes the case for deciding deliberately, and covers affidavits, examinations under oath, and depositions by written question as alternatives that keep your adversary out of the room entirely.

Sequencing, notices, locations, and defeating the games opponents play with your calendar.

Whether to go early or late, which witnesses to take first, and how to handle the lawyer who insists on going first, claims a witness knows nothing, or is never available. Includes drafting notices that hold up, cross noticing, and remote deposition concerns.

Getting witnesses there, and the flaws that get subpoenas quashed.

Issuing and compliance courts, the pitfalls that get subpoenas quashed, notice requirements before serving document subpoenas, compelling compliance through a miscellaneous action, and the language that keeps a subpoena alive when a deposition moves.

Recording, framing, lighting, and using clips that change how testimony lands.

How to independently record every deposition, what equipment to use, how to produce your own working transcripts at a fraction of agency pricing, and how to use clips in mediation and at trial. Also covers videographer framing, playback environments, and lighting.

Choosing, managing, and controlling the person who creates your official record.

How to find exceptional reporters, what national agencies will not tell you, how to control fees before they appear on an invoice, where the reporter should sit, and what to do when the transcript comes back wrong.

Age, illness, language, privilege, children, and apex witnesses.

Deposing witnesses whose competency is challenged, including the elderly, the ill, those with speech or cognitive impairments, children, privilege holders, and apex executives. Covers interpreters, medications, and confidentiality agreements that witnesses believe prevent them from testifying.

The evidence available to you before anyone sits down.

What you can learn outside the room, inside the room, and from the vehicles in the parking lot, plus why the rule of sequestration does not apply the way most lawyers assume.

The core module: technique, tactics, and control once you are on the record.

The largest module in the course. Portable printers and real time exhibits, the oath, eye contact, non answers, selective memory, authority bias, sealing testimony, judicial admissions, document dumps, jury instructions as an examination tool, witness tampering, and dozens more.

Teaching your witness to answer with precision and hold their ground.

The foundation of witness preparation, starting with dismantling everything your client learned from television. Precision in answering, the proper use of I do not know, refusing a reframe, surviving interruptions, handling documents and humiliating personal questions, screening for your own client's misconduct before it surfaces, and why conferring with your witness during breaks is not forbidden no matter what opposing counsel tells you.

The specific tactics opposing counsel will use, and how to prepare for each.

Every tactic that will be used against your witness, with a scripted response for each. Verbal hedging, accusations of lying, question blitzes, feigned disbelief, deliberate exhaustion and the false finish line, rephrasing traps, repeated questions, phone phishing, invited ignorance, and the closing trap of is that everything. Includes mirroring the specific opposing lawyer in mock sessions so the real deposition is your witness's third, not their first.

Topic lists, designees, and how binding the testimony really is.

The most underused tool in civil litigation. How to force an organization to produce a witness who can answer, rather than one who cannot. Building topic lists that work, how binding the testimony actually is and why most lawyers overestimate it, probing exactly how the designee was prepared, claiming seven hours per designee rather than seven total, handling too many or too few designees, duces tecum requests, objectionable topic lists, protective orders, and retaining an outside expert as your own designee.

Daubert, Frye, expert binders, and defending your own.

Daubert and Frye standards and when to file the challenge, scheduling expert depositions for maximum advantage, the complete expert binder checklist, a seven-part examination covering retention, methodology, bias, and scope, how to prepare your own expert for a genuinely hostile cross, and how to refuse an outrageous fee demand instead of paying it.

Making them, answering them, and stopping misconduct on the record.

How to hold the room. When to ignore objections entirely and when to stop everything, whether form alone preserves anything, speaking objections, coaching, standing objections and the ones that waive privilege outright, objecting to answers rather than questions, answer hijacking, argumentative questioning, tag teaming by multiple examiners, non-record counsel, and how to suspend or terminate a deposition correctly instead of simply walking out.

For as long as the course exists. There is no expiration and no renewal. New lessons are added regularly and you receive them at no additional cost.

That is up to you. The lessons are short and single topic by design, so most students work through a module at a time or jump straight to what they need before a specific deposition. There is no schedule and nothing expires.

No. The course is grounded in the Federal Rules because most state rules mirror them, and Jim consistently flags where state practice diverges and what to verify in your own jurisdiction. He practices across multiple states and the material reflects that.

That is much of the audience. The material assumes you know the rules and starts where most training stops. Experienced litigators tend to find the most value in the modules on court reporters, audio and video, witness preparation, and the day of the deposition, because nothing in conventional training covers that ground.

Yes. Two full modules are devoted to preparing deponents, and defense strategy runs throughout, including the entire objections module and the sections on protecting your witness from improper tactics.

No. They are sequenced to follow the arc of a deposition, so working straight through makes sense the first time. After that most students use it as a reference library.

Yes. Worksheets, practice documents, and supplemental case files referenced in the lessons are included and downloadable.