Comment by iamflimflam1
1 day ago
Weirdly, I was talking to someone earlier about this who had been deposed.
They ask repeated questions repetitive questions hoping that you slip up/contradict yourself.
He said it was an interest experience trying to repeat exactly the same answers he’d already given.
I was deposed once.
It was 6 hours where the opposing counsel tried to rattle me / get under my skin with insulting questions.
To be clear, I was only an expert witness in the lawsuit (drug + pregnant lady + birth defects). It paid extremely well, but was something I would never want to do routinely.
At the end of the deposition, the lawyer had to catch a flight to the west coast and she asked ME if I would drive her to the airport* (she said she'd pay me my hourly rate)!
At that point it was clear that the insults were just theater and "part of the job", but I took it all too personally and told her I had to get home.
* She was late for the flight and Uber wasn't a thing yet.
> At the end of the deposition, the lawyer had to catch a flight to the west coast and she asked ME.
Was the lawyer that hired you present when she made the offer to pay you? If not, I'll cynically assume she was trying to entangle you in some conflict-of-interest ploy to keep you from being called as an expert at the trial.
Theater insults are as much insults as any other. In the context of law process, even worst I would say.
I don't think you can be a lawyer if you take cases personally. At some point you have to defend a rapist who is clearly guilty.
Serious question, do you?
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it's not that they don't take it personally and actually feel the pain/ disgust / fear / <whatever>, it's that they hold the tenets of law as absolute and the most important part of the system. This definitely takes a particular type of person.
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Why doesn’t your lawyer just say “asked and answered”
Does that require a lawyer to say, or can the person being questioned also just state that?