Practice Management

Quit wasting depositions: Informal discovery, simple investigations.

By Dan Hull

Why use deposition time to learn things you can learn from phone calls, neighborhood libraries and Google?

--DC trial lawyer Ernie from Glen Burnie, speaking with paralegals and associates, circa last month.

Save time, save money, get better results. You get the idea. Twenty years ago, James McElhaney, a gifted lawyer, writer and teacher of trial tactics, and the ABA Litigation Section, first published McElhaney's Trial Notebook, now in its fourth edition. Discovery, McElhaney noted, is a good way to learn what a witness will say, or to bind a party or witness to a particular version of the facts.

However, formal discovery, he went on, "is a very inefficient way to get information." There are lots of investigation ideas in McElhaney's book, but they all involve simple curiosity and do-it-yourself "trolling" for information the trial lawyer gets first-hand on his or her own. Next time a new case begins, resist rushing into written discovery and depositions.

Step back from the discovery routine--you'll get into that bubble soon enough--and learn a few things on your own.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).