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Avoiding Ambush: Tips for the Successful Preparation and Presentation of Witnesses

BY Kimberly D. Baker
August 01, 2003

A successful defense against a consumer's claim that she was damaged from using a medication manufactured by one of your pharmaceutical clients may hinge significantly on the testimony provided by a research scientist, a pharmacologist, or perhaps a warnings or a marketing specialist. While these witnesses have key sources of knowledge about the product, its development, testing, labeling and/or distribution, they may also bring with them fears and inadequacies that could result in the ambush of your defense.

Too often defense counsel wear blinders as they steer toward the presentation of their “defense.” They focus on causation or science without determining whether the witness they are relying upon to present key information will be able to present evidence comfortably and credibly to a jury.

To maximize a witness's effectiveness at deposition or trial, defense counsel should first do a “check up” on the well being and comfort level of the witness in the litigation in order to determine what fears or anxieties surround her transition from laboratory, boardroom, or sales meeting to the court reporter's office or the courtroom. Long before the doors of the courtroom are entered, defense counsel should take into account the following considerations.

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