Cross-Examination: Science and Techniques

In Cross-Examination: Science and Techniques, Second Edition, Larry Pozner and Roger Dodd continue their outstanding tradition of helping attorneys conduct commanding cross-examinations. The second edition offers deeper analysis of cross-examination methods, with more integration and interrelationship of techniques and principles. In analyzing thousands of new trial experiences, they present efficient techniques to confront the challenges of evolving admissibility standards and electronic discovery, and ultimately, help attorneys develop cross-examination skills that are critical to trial success. Inside you'll find valuable advice on how to:



•   Use opponents' objections as the springboard for deeper and broader cross-examinations.

•   Sequence cross-examination to teach the theory of the case in the best way, and to literally expand the rules of admissibility.

•   Use "loops" (the practice of incorporating and repeating key phrases and terms in successive questions to the witness) to rename witnesses and exhibits.

•   Use "double loops" to discredit opposing expert witnesses.

•   Use voir dire to create great jurors

•   Use a fact-driven investigation to develop a winning theory

•   Use a witness's own words to follow your theme and theory

•   Control the runaway witness

•   Communicate winning theories in opening, cross, and closing

•   Use loops to box in the witness

•   Use tactical sequencing to create the most powerful cross

•   Convert a witness's silence into admission of fact

•   Induce the witness to voice your pre-selected words

•   Prepare for devastating impeachment

•   Close off any escape routes for the witness

•   Punish the evasive or "I don't know" witness

•   Control the crying witness

•   Use timing, posture, inflection, diction, wording, eye contact, and other effects to emphasize a witness's concession

Effective cross-examination is a science with established guidelines, identifiable techniques, and definable methods. Attorneys can learn how to control the outcome with careful preparation, calculated strategy, effective skills, and a disciplined demeanor. Pozner and Dodd's treatise remains the definitive guide to preparing killer cross-examinations, only from LexisNexis.