Effective Cross-Examination Strategies for Depositions
Cross-examining during depositions can make or break a case. Knowing the right questions to ask and how to ask them is crucial for any attorney. In this week’s episode, nursing home abuse attorney Rob Schenk welcomes guest Roger Dodd to talk about mastering cross-examination techniques in depositions and how to strengthen your case with effective questioning.
Schenk:
The science of cross examination during depositions. Hey out there, welcome back to the nursing home abuse podcast. My name is Rob. I will be your host for this episode today. We are going to be nerding out as they say on the technique of cross examination, but specifically the strategy of cross examination during your typical deposition, not a trial at deposition.
I’m Rob McClendon. And why that may be a strategy that you as a, as an attorney might want to employ and somehow pulled off a coup. And I got the guy to come on the show and talk to us about his perspective on that. He’s the man that literally wrote the book on cross examination. None other than the fantastic trial attorney.
Roger Dodd. So we’re going to have an excellent conversation with Mr. Dodd about cost examination and deposition.
As I mentioned, we’re going to be talking all about cost examination strategies during depositions and we are not doing that alone. We’re doing that with the man, the trial attorney the man who wrote the book, trial attorney Roger J.
Dodd. Roger Dodd practices trial law in Valdosta, Georgia, Jacksonville, Florida, and Park City, Utah, handling personal injury, wrongful death, criminal defense, and domestic relations cases. With over 20 years in best lawyers and super lawyers listings across multiple states, he’s a seasoned legal expert.
Roger has been a board certified, has been board certified in civil trial practice and criminal trial practice and serves as co counsel nationwide and internationally. He is the author of the book and I have it here. It’s a tome. He is the author of the science of cross examination. He also coaches lawyers across the country through various clinics, which we’ll talk about when he comes on and he’s appeared on numerous TV networks for legal expertise.
And we are so happy to have him on the show, Roger. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I was raised Southern. Okay. My, my late father was born in 1938. So it’s so hard for me to call you Roger and not Mr. Dodd because of that book cross examination right there. Like that I should. I should be, I don’t know that it’s, I appreciate the compliment of allowing me to refer to you as Roger, not Mr. Dodd, just right off the bat.
Dodd:
Happy to have you call me Roger. And if you want to feel more comfortable, send checks,
Schenk:
I was going to say, I probably, I should probably cut you some checks from the knowledge I got from that book. But anyway we won’t bore everybody about this. Okay, I wanted to have you on because I wanted to get your perspective go directly to the horse’s mouth on this and this it’s this in terms of depositions, there are many lawyers on one side of the camp that I’m asking what wise and that’s it.
And then there are other, on the other side of the camp where I believe that you’re more closely aligned is, I approach the deposition like it’s a cross examination at trial. I’ve got all my exhibits ready and I try to have the exhibits as though I’m going to have them at trial and I cross examine the deponent.
What do you employ cross examination during depositions?
Schenk:
So can you tell me if I’m right in that assumption, but where you are on that spectrum and why? From a general standpoint.
Dodd:
Yeah, I probably was one of the earliest ones to set the course for do it like you’re doing a deposit, do the deposition like you’re doing trial. 20 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago, it was fine to what happened next.
Gee whiz, see you at trial, what happened next. The problem is we never got to trial. The statistics are less than one percent of our cases go to a jury trial. Whoever would accept medical care That address 1 percent of your problems, we wouldn’t do it would say no, I need you to treat 99 percent of it.
Treat, treat the big problem. The thing I’m going to see most of the time. And that’s when we looked up and said, we have to do this a different way. I love ambushing people and I love ambushing people at trial spent the 1st, 20 years of my career doing that and enjoyed it. It was fairly successful with it.
The problem was the threat of I’m going to impeach you at trial is not much of a threat if you’re never going to trial. And that’s not on the lawyer. That’s not on, I used to get mad at, lawyers settle cases too low. It has very little to do with that. Now it has to do with times have changed.
The whole system is designed not to go to trial. When I first started trying cases, they would line you up on Monday morning and here you go. And don’t expect to see your family until the week’s over or maybe two weeks. That’s all changed. The whole system is designed to not try the case. ADR is has a very good purpose.
The problem is ADR ate jury trials, literally ate them. And I’m in a case now, not in Georgia, but I’m in a case now where the judge said, sent us to mediation. Okay. It didn’t work. And he called us and said, I’m sending you back to mediation.
Dive into the complexities of cross-examination with the American Bar Association’s comprehensive guide on cross-examination.
Schenk:
All right. And
Dodd:
I said, judge, I’m ready to try a case. I’m like, yeah, I know you’re ready to try a case.
You’re not trying to case. You’re going back to mediation. And the threat is he’ll send us a third time. The system is now set up to. 95 to 99 percent of the time the cases are going to resolve short of a jury trial. If that’s the situation, then what are you saving your best cross for?
What are the benefits of using cross examination during depositions?
Schenk:
And that’s, and I guess that for me, for when I tell people, that’s what I try to do.
It’s you’re giving away your hand. You’re not, you’re leaving everything on the table. The defense knows exactly what you’re going to do. And if it does go to trial, You’ve given them the opportunity to figure out how to defeat what you’ve done at deposition. That’s the big pushback that I hear.
Dodd:
So let’s deal with both of those. Is the other side going to know your theory, your narrative? Yeah, but let’s be honest. If they didn’t know by trial, you’ve got a really bad opponent. Really bad. And you can’t rely on the other side fumbling a ball. So let’s not play for the fumble. Let’s go ahead and try our case.
The second one I hear more often, and that is they’re going to come up with an explanation. Okay. Then that’ll be three explanations. They’re going to tell me what they told me at deposition, because I’m going to pin their ass down. And they’re going to get pinned down in a way I, like I would at trial, where there’s not going to be a lot of way out.
All right, let’s assume they come up with a new version. Okay, I’m going to pin them down on that version and impeach them with what I did at deposition. And the reason I say three versions, inevitably, there is a redirect. They come up with a third version,
Schenk:
right?
Dodd:
To equate those two. They get ’em to get go together, right?
And my experience has been they can’t get it to go together because if I’ve done my job well, and secondly, the jury doesn’t accept it, the jury looks up and goes, wait a minute, you keep changing your story. And now my narrative is not what the story was at the deposition. My narrative is you can’t believe anything that comes outta this guy’s mouth.
Refine your courtroom skills by exploring strategies for direct and cross-examinations available at the ABA Solo and Small Firm Resource.
Now, juries get angry about funny little things, but the number one thing they get angry about lie to me,
Schenk:
right?
Dodd:
Go ahead and lie to me and I’ll take care of it in the verdict.
Schenk:
I think that for 48
Dodd:
years, right? Like that.
Doesn’t cross examination at deposition give away strategy?
Schenk:
Exactly. I think that at least for me, One of the great advantages of the many advantages of really honing in and cross and treating the deposition like a cross examination, is that it makes you prepare, it makes you absolutely, it makes you, you develop your chapters.
You you get your exhibits ready and you think about the, at least for me in my, how my brain works, I think of the decision trees, okay, this person can only move in one of two or three directions, and I want to be able to have a chapter for each. And it really and I understand that.
Planning is plans are useless. Planning is essential. I get that. But it makes you really get in the moment there, right? Can you walk us through, like how does Roger Dodd prepare for a deposition like cross examination at trial? What are you thinking about? And how does that, is it an outline?
Are you literally writing your questions out to tell us about that?
Dodd:
Everybody’s different about the way they do their questioning, an outline, a series of bullet points, what have you. And I leave that to the person. There’s two things you want. Number one, do the same thing every time.
Don’t keep experimenting. At some point, just pick a method. It might be a great method, it might be a crappy method. Pick a method. You will be more comfortable with the method. And then the second thing is actually sit down well in advance and prepare. Now that is a pain when you’re not used to doing that until trial, the advantages, you see the field so much better, you see all the nuance, you see where they’re going to go.
And if they go that way, then I got a, B, and C. And if they don’t go that way, I got D, E, and F. And if I don’t have something, this is something no one ever talks about. What happens when you don’t have a good comeback to their answer? You might not ought to be in that case, you may ought to look up and go, damn, I got more problems than I thought.
Now you can do something about it. And you’re not doing it on the fly and you’re not doing it in front of the jury live and in person. Now, there’s still going to be some of that. But frankly, most of the trial lawyers I know enjoy that part. Let’s see, in real time, I’m going to bet on me, or I’m going to bet on the witness.
Okay, I’m going to pick me. Okay.
I won’t be every damn time. Sure. Because no one has put the time in that we’ve put in, now here’s a legitimate criticism. Doesn’t that mean that you will over prepare many of your cases? Absolutely over prepared the hell out of it.
Learn about the best practices for retaining and working with experts in litigation from the New York State Bar Association.
Schenk:
Meaning like you spend an extra 60 hours on something that you shouldn’t have, but come on.
Dodd:
Absolutely. Yep. I would always rather know that I over-prepared and wasted some of my life doing it Sure. Than having to turn to a client, say, the game was on and I just didn’t prepare, and hey, we lost.
Schenk:
No.
Dodd:
I got another case to try. You don’t, sorry. Don’t wanna have that conversation.
I’ve represented clients who have had that conversation with their lawyers. Not pleasant. And I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be the guy that overprepares. I had an opponent once say, you’re really very mechanical. You’re very predictable. Anything that can be attacked, you attack. Anything that can be explained, you explain.
And I thought, okay, at first I didn’t like mechanical, but I’ll live with mechanical.
Schenk:
I take mechanical as a compliment. Absolutely.
Dodd:
We still don’t like each other and that was years ago.
Schenk:
I see.
Dodd:
He and I don’t we don’t send cards to each other.
Schenk:
Okay. Okay. So we’ve got the preparation, like at least for me, it’s still at my point in my career.
Every single question is perfectly worded. I might not look at that document as I’m doing the deposition, but if I’m struggling to come up with exactly the right, I know that I’ve got it. Yeah. Okay. So we have that. Can you walk us through the kind of your. your primary rules for cross examination, obviously not necessarily just a deposition, but in general, what are the kind of the three, what are the three things that you’re looking to do?
Dodd:
Yeah, first of all, and this isn’t one of the three rules on forming the question, it’s organization. We want chapters. You already talked about you got all your chapters in line. You know where you’re going with it You do that for deposition just like you would for trial All right, that gives you where it answers these questions.
Where am I? Where am I going and how am I going to get there? Now if you think about those three questions in terms of life Those aren’t three bad questions. Those are pretty good questions.
Discover the ethical considerations of witness preparation according to the American Bar Association’s Formal Opinion 508.
Schenk:
Sure
Dodd:
All right, now the three rules leading questions only. We all know how to lead. We’ve refined that to if a sentence starts with a verb, it’s not leading enough, right?
There’s a big difference between you were there and were you there? One’s open ended. The other one is I’m telling you what happened. We want to be really leading. Second rule is one new fact per question. Don’t mash a lot of facts in and where I see lawyers doing that a lot. Is when they’re really prepared, they know all these facts and they’re going to get them all in the one question, not very effective teaching model for the witness or for the juror.
Okay. So one fact per question, let it play out more slowly. And when you’re really prepared, trial slows down. When you first tried a case, it was like, I can’t even believe the case is over, what happened? So someone gave me oxygen. This helps us all slow down and then we’re always going to go general to specific.
So you wouldn’t ask, Hey, the plaintiff was in room two 36 in a nursing home. Not at the beginning. You would say the plaintiff was in your nursing home, much more general But we eliminate a lot of false traps that way.
Schenk:
I think that of the three Roger Dodd cross examination rules, that one was the hardest for me because it seems like you are slowing it down to your own detriment.
But in reality, it’s not. It’s allowing everybody to build the mental picture of nursing home unit. Room nurse, you and, oh, okay. Cause if you have too many facts in your question, the people aren’t getting there with you and they mentally can’t do that.
Dodd:
But for what you have to do is look up and realize I’ve worked on this harder than any human in the world and I have to teach it in a way that 12 people who really didn’t sign up for this.
We’ll say, I not only follow it, I understand your narrative. And your narrative is the only logical thing out there.
Engage with broader legal resources and professional development at the American Bar Association website.
Does cross examination at deposition allow the deponent to change the answer?
Schenk:
One of the, one of the, one of the pushbacks that I actually just, somebody told me last week because they were reviewing a deposition transcript of mine and it was, Rob, you have to let the people, you have to let the deponent say something, the jury is not going to like that your question was leading and I’m like, I’m trying to get bits, I’m trying to get something that An expert that I can show because I record all of them.
I video record them. Sure. And and so you understand that there was, on October 16th, there wasn’t more than two hours of nursing staff. Correct. Boom. Now, did they say the words on this day on this date? No, but so how do you, what’s your response to that kind of criticism that
Dodd:
Yeah, and I will tell you historically when we first came out with the first edition.
So now we’re talking more than 20 years ago. That was the criticism. The jury’s not going to buy it all the time from the lawyer because the lawyers don’t the only one talking. At first we just said they’ll never sort that out. Juries don’t think that way, whatever. And then I thought about it and thought, I’m saying that, but I don’t have any science behind that.
So we did like 12, 14 focus groups. Juries don’t think that way. Juries don’t know who said what. They don’t know if it was the answer or the question. And if you’re worried about it, you can jazz up your deposition questions by saying, now I just said she was in room 327. If I said what room was she in, you would say 327.
Yes, I would. So when I say it’s the same as you saying it. I guess so. That’s what you always get. I guess so. I guess so. Yeah. And so what ends up happening is if you’re worried with that, particularly, every case is a little different. Every opponent’s a little different. Then clean it up that way.
The depositions are perfect place to do it. You have more freedom there, but I’m telling you, and we still focus group things, the 20 minutes at the end of the focus group at the end of the day, you’ve paid all these people and you got nothing left, focus group, every concept that we teach, because we think that juries will change is this next generation has changed.
The next one after that will change. So we focus group ideas and we give them examples. So far, 100%. They don’t know the difference between the witness said it or I said it.
Access a wealth of information about the attorney general offices across the United States via the National Association of Attorneys General.
Schenk:
Sure.
Dodd:
And frankly, it’s more effective for young lawyers, younger lawyers. To lead than it is for me. I come off as authoritative now because I got a lot of gray hair and what have you. And probably because I’m a jerk.
Schenk:
Stop it.
Dodd:
We try not to talk about that. But younger people who lead come across as very committed to the case. And we’ve actually had people in focus groups say, I knew you were on the right side because no lawyer would ever prepare that much unless they were on the right side.
Sad commentary on the way they look at lawyers, but it didn’t surprise me a bit. I’ve had jurors say the same thing to me after a trial.
How do you prepare your deposition cross examination?
Schenk:
One of the a key concept that you teach. is teaching the jury through the cross examination. So this is one of the reasons why my depositions sometimes go the full seven hours in Georgia, but it’s, I want I will take them through a document and make them explain to me everything in the document.
So that way, We have that ready for the jury. If it’s, if it’s an incident report, okay, what is the, why is the, what the, what does the date mean up here? What does this mean? This kind of thing or the date means this means this and that yes. So we have we are having the defendant teach the jury about their documents, not me teaching about them.
Dodd:
So, that’s almost a perfect explanation of constructive cross. their witness, their document, my cross examination. I am going to make them talk about my narrative. I’m going to make them talk about my theory of the case. And so when they’re identifying the document, like you said, and when they’re identifying the details of a document that everybody agrees on, and therefore no one thinks is important, they’re still ratifying your narrative.
Tune into our podcast episode discussing the differences between criminal and civil proceedings in nursing home neglect cases.
Schenk:
Exactly.
Dodd:
And that’s important. I’m look, I’m a big believer in if a cross takes seven hours, take seven hours. If it takes three days, take three days, beg for more time. On the other hand. If it takes 20 minutes and you’ve nailed them on 20 minutes, sit your ass down.
The process takes, people always ask me, how long is this going to take?
I don’t know. I don’t know the answers yet. Judge, I have this many questions, but I don’t know.
Schenk:
Yeah.
Dodd:
Yeah. I know what my questions are going to be. I don’t know how he’s going to answer it. I said that to an older judge in Utah, and he leaned into the microphone and said that finally makes some sense.
And it was one of those moments where you look up and go, I wonder how many times the judge heard, I can do this in an hour and it ended up being three hours. And yeah I’m with you. If it takes seven hours, take the seven hours.
Explore the legal processes and strategies in nursing home abuse cases in our detailed podcast episode on the Stages of a Nursing Home Abuse Lawsuit.
How do you sequence your cross examination questions at depositons?
Schenk:
So you’ve described the chapter system in terms of here’s where we are.
Here’s where we want to go. In general, what are some of the what are a couple of the rules that you might have, or a couple of guidelines that you might have in terms of how you’re structuring the deposition in terms of the questioning what you, maybe what you want to attack first versus what you want to attack last, that kind of thing.
Dodd:
That’s a great question. And it’s one that people don’t ask often enough. We believe in our office’s sequencing, which is what you’re asking about. What order is the most complicated question to be answered at a deposition? Much more complicated than at trial. At trial you’re laying it out so everybody understands it.
At a deposition, you’re really not giving a hoot. If anybody understands why you’re doing it in the order you’re doing it, you’re just trying to get them pinned to something. Now, as a backdrop to that, I’ve said publicly, and then we had to go look it up and make sure I had said it I 70 percent of my time in depositions laying foundation.
70%. Which makes it sound like, wow, you’re spending a lot of time on, tell me about this document, who drafted the doc, all this stuff, all the authentication stuff, all, I’m eliminating half of the trials, what I’m trying to do. I’m getting to where I don’t have to worry about authentication trial. I already got that.
I don’t have to worry about hearsay. I already eliminated that. I’m eliminating everything. So at trial, I can tell my story in a way that it sounds like a story and not so formalistic like a trial lawyer would tell. And so it gives you much more creativity at trial. If you do, in fact, do the foundation stuff,
Schenk:
I think, okay, go ahead. Sorry.
Dodd:
I was going to say. And we came to this conclusion for about eight years. I did nothing but defend or sue lawyers. Everybody wanted me to, sue their lawyer. Everybody wanted me to defend their lawyer or judge. Amazing how many things judges do that end up in litigation. And you say to yourself after a few of them go, damn, I’d have never thought that would have happened.
But what we learned to do there was to close all the hatches before we got to trial, because when you do a real effective trial cross at deposition, the lawyer who is the witness or the defendant or the plaintiff. That’s the person who’s going to change their answer. So we had to be really careful with the way we were doing it.
Because when we started doing it, it was controversial that I was laying out all the facts and our clients didn’t like it because they were saying, you’re telling the other side what you’re doing, all those criticisms. So what we decided to do was we were going to nail down every foundation we could before we ever got to trial.
Understand the reasons why a nursing home abuse case might end up in court by listening to our podcast episode, Why Would a Nursing Home Case Go to Court?.
And it turned out, it went so well that at the end of the deposition, we had the case settled because the other side looked up and said, number one, we can’t explain this now. Number two, any explanation we can come up with is going to be embarrassing. And number three, can we talk settlement right now?
Schenk:
So great things to hear.
Dodd:
My rule has, I said, all right, how many minutes into the seven hours are we? And they told me, I said, okay, we suspend now. Anything we do that doesn’t get it settled doesn’t count.
It doesn’t count all my damn seven hours. And it took a day or two, I think, to settle that one because their client, a lawyer, was very reluctant to finally own the fact that he had screwed it up.
Schenk:
I see.
Dodd:
And I, listen, I get it. You see it in medical malpractice, you see it in nursing home. They didn’t mean to hurt the lady they just did, and now they have to get used to the idea that I went into this profession to help people, and in fact, I killed this lady in the nursing home. That’s a big jump. Very few people that I’ve met in my practice.
Go, I don’t care that I killed her. They all care and they’re embarrassed and they’re confused or, some of them don’t even know they’ve done it. But it takes a little while for them to get there. And in this method, by the way, this method works best in professional cases. legal malpractice, medical malpractice, nursing home cases.
Everybody’s an expert. And if you use this method, you’ll beat the old method and you’ll save time
Schenk:
For me. So for example, you say you spend a lot of time on foundations. So like my typical deposition, if I’m taking a, the RN that might have knowledge about what happened to the resident.
Okay. Okay. Some attorneys will jump right in and just and try to get the kill shot immediately. But as you mentioned, what I try to do is I try to line up how many years have you been a nurse? Like how but just enough to establish that you should know what you’re doing. Absolutely. So I, it used to be when I first started, I would, my preamble was like, an hour long until we get to the heart of the case, but no let’s, I am only asking you enough questions at the beginning. So we, everybody in this room can understand that you’ve been in a nurse for 30 years.
You take C continuing education classes, you take in services, so you should know what you’re doing. And then boom, we go into. We go into the, to the crop, but the real cross examination, because I’ve laid the foundation that you’re simply that you’re an expert, but you absolutely, I tell
Dodd:
people all the time, their expert should become my expert at the end of the deposition, they’re going to say, Hey, I go with Dodd, I am now going to shift sides. Nope. They never do that.
Now, and they’re never going to admit the I did killer part, never the conclusion. But what they will admit is all the facts you need for your narrative. So at the end, in the closing argument to a jury, it should be, and what did their experts say? Exactly what my expert said, except for, and that resulted in her death. And we all know why they didn’t say that part. That part’s your part.
Learn about initiating a nursing home lawsuit in Georgia through our in-depth podcast episode, Initiating a Nursing Home Lawsuit in Georgia.
Schenk:
Exactly.
Dodd:
And juries embrace that. I think juries understand, they understand who the good teachers are, who are trial lawyers. And they know the ones who are putting on a show for the client. Juries figure that part out, civil and criminal, by the way.
I have some colleagues who personally I like, but I wouldn’t send anybody to have them try their case because it’s showtime for them. They’re in their career where I’m just going to show off and I’m going to get a big fee. And that’s not what we do. What we do is educate juries and then juries do the right thing. And I’m here to tell you 99 percent of the time they do the right thing.
Schenk:
Speaking of education, Roger, can you please tell everybody that’s watching or listening what you do when you do it and how they might get ahold of you if they want to learn from you?
Dodd:
Sure. We’ve gotten away from doing lectures because everybody sits in the back row.
The real trial lawyers sit in the back row and they’re they don’t mean to, but they start fiddling with their You know, preparation, and now they’re not listening. So what we decided to do was we developed a clinic where we have two professional improv actors, a male and a female, and they play up to 14, 15 different roles in a two day period.
And they’re as good as any experts you’ve ever seen. I defy anybody to get into them and just tear them up, because I can’t do it anymore.
And what we do is get 8, 8 participants and you get up on your feet immediately and over a 2 day period of time, you’re going to be on your feet at least 5 times and you’re going to perform crosses.
Now, you tell me I want to work on deposition crosses. Okay, we’re going to do deposition cross. You tell me I want trial crosses, then we do trial crosses. And everybody participates. So if you’re not cross examining, you’re not just watching, you’re saying to yourself, how can I do this better? How can this why did that not work?
And then you have to critique. The second day you’re critiquing with me, with another instructor, and with the two improv actors. So there’s going to be minimum four or five people critiquing every cross. What we found is you can go from here to a whole nother level in two days. And the reason you can, is you have time to do it.
Look at your day. You’re putting fires out one after the other, you’re answering phones, you’re, and of course, the staff has a problem that day too, because Joni looked at me funny and she didn’t even help much. And, so we do so many other things that we don’t get around to really honing our cross skills.
But in the clinic, you do, and then we have follow up with alumni clinics, what have you, but if you look up a Roger Don trial clinics that portal gets you right into it. Okay. I don’t think we have any open dates now. We tend to, we try not to have a waiting list. So we try to get everybody in, but I think, and I’m looking this way because my partner’s here and she remembers better than I do.
I think we have some dates coming up in, in the fall in LA. Okay. But we can transfer that. LA always sells out pretty fast, but if it doesn’t, we could transfer that to Atlanta. Two years ago LA had a crazy holiday and we couldn’t get aid. We just moved it all to Atlanta.
Schenk:
Okay.
And that website will be in the show notes and the transcript if anybody wants to click on that, um, and and I want to plug this for you. You are the author of probably the seminal work on cross examination, probably in the last 50 years. I, and I didn’t realize this before you, you told me before I don’t have the latest edition, but I have the second edition of cross examination, science and techniques, and I really recommend that everybody gets this.
And then of course the compendium. Which is cross examinations at deposition. You’re the author of both of these books. And I think they’re right. And on your website as well, or do you have to go to like trial guys or something? I don’t know.
Dodd:
No you can do the website or just contact me. It’s Dod Law. We, I still want to be. a country trial lawyer.
Schenk:
Okay.
Dodd:
So I still answer the phone on my own when I, when we can we try not to get too fancy and we try real hard not to get too big.
Schenk:
I hear it.
Dodd:
I don’t mind consulting with big firms, but I can’t do their rules. They have a lot of frigging rules.
Schenk:
I hear that.
Dodd:
I, they have, Oh, we, today is Friday. So you can’t wear a tie. If I’m taking a deposition, I’m wearing a damn tie. Now you can kiss my ass, that’s what I do. But, look we’re gonna try to keep it simple and the goal now, in my age, the goal is get everybody as good as we can get them on the cross.
Schenk:
There you go.
Dodd:
Now look, only 1 percent of the, of trial lawyers really give a damn about cross. It’s a very small group and people say how do you know someone cares? Don’t care. Give me about 10 minutes with them and give you 10 minutes. Rob, you’ll know,
Schenk:
right?
Dodd:
Who the ones that, are staying up at night and wondering, how can I pull this out, Trial work isn’t supposed to get easier. It’s supposed to get harder.
Schenk:
There you go. Always learning. And couldn’t set it better. Roger, thank you so much for coming on here. I really appreciate it. As I told you before, I was really looking forward to this conversation. I’m a little confirmation bias because I’m a, I’m an acolyte of the system, but appreciate it. And thank you so much.
Dodd:
Thank you, Rob. I appreciate you having me. Thank you.
Guest Info:
- Roger Dodd on LinkedIn
- Dodd Law
- Dodd Law on Instagram