Cross-Examination: Science and Techniques 3rd ed

Cross-Examination: Science and Techniques, 3rd edition is an extensive revision and reorganization of Pozner and Dodd’s classic work, written to meet the needs of today’s trial attorneys.

Pozner and Dodd’s signature techniques and methodologies, which have brought them acclaim as the nation’s leading experts on cross-examination, are illustrated with numerous new examples added specifically for the Third Edition. The authors provide their best-ever coverage of the “chapter method” of cross-examination with additional excerpts to illustrate various trial scenarios.

New content also includes Chapter 6 on Cross Preparation Systems: Sourcing the Facts, giving you the tools to immediately inform a witness, and the court, what electronic or paper document you are using and exactly where in the document is the material upon which you are questioning.

As always, the authors, who have lectured on cross-examination to thousands of attorneys worldwide, guide you to successful trial outcomes with a conversational, engaging, and easy-to-read writing style.

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.