title: Deposition dos and don'ts: strategies for the expert witness.
abstract: The deposition is an important stage in the legal process, which poses special challenges for the deponent. This article reviews those challenges from the standpoint of the expert witness, addressing the stages of the deposition, the deposing attorney's strategies, the role and goals of the expert witness serving as the deponent, the approach to answering the attorney's questions, strategies for clarifying or reframing those questions, and the approaches to reviewing the deposition after the transcript has been printed. The article emphasizes tricks and traps used by the deposing attorney and how to avoid them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center and the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School, 6 Wellman Street, Brookline, MA 02446, USA. gutheiltg@cs.com
authors.forename: Thomas G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Gutheil
mesh_terms: D005104:Expert Testimony / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D033241:Lawyers / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*