Episode 55 - Mastering Your Deposition: A Conversation with Alex Craig

Alex Craig: It’s really important to meet with our clients before a deposition and meet as many times as necessary to make sure that they’re ready for the deposition. Whatever is necessary for that client and that case, we make sure that we don’t have a client that goes into a deposition that’s not prepared.

David Craig – Host: I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of Craig, Kelley & Faultless. For over 35 years, I’ve dedicated my career to helping individuals and families who have been seriously injured or lost loved ones in devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle accidents. When tragedy strikes, life can feel chaotic, overwhelming, and uncertain. Many people don’t even know where to begin or what questions to ask. That’s why I created After the Crash, a podcast designed to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate these challenging times. In each episode, I sit down with experts, professionals, victims, and others involved in truck wreck cases to give you inside guidance and practical advice. Together we’ll help you understand your rights, protect your family, and move forward. This is After the Crash.

Well, welcome to another episode of After the Crash, the podcast. Today we have a special guest, somebody from within our law firm, Craig, Kelley & Faultless, one of our partners, Alex Craig. Alex graduated from the IU McKinney Law School, magna cum laude. He graduated with an MBA from Saint Louis, is it the Cook School of Business over in Saint Louis University? He graduated undergrad from IU Bloomington School of Business. He was on Law Review when he was in law school. He was the 2023 Max Goodwin Young Attorney Award recipient. He’s been recognized by Super Lawyers, been recognized by Best Lawyers and also National Trial Lawyers as one of the top young lawyers in the country. So obviously welcome to have you, Alex.

Alex Craig: Thank you.

David Craig – Host: The best thing about him, though, is that he’s my son, so all the other stuff is not nearly as important. But Alex, what we have Alex on today for is that a question is something that always comes up and clients are really worried and concerned about it are when they have to be deposed, when they have to give a deposition. And so there’s a lot of anxiety.

So, when you get hit by a semi or tractor trailer and we file a lawsuit or any other big truck or commercial vehicle or even a car crash, any personal injury case, the odds are once that lawsuit has been filed, they’re going — the defense — is going to take your deposition. So, that’s what we’re here today to talk about. So Alex, why don’t you start off with just telling us what is a deposition, because some people don’t have even a clue.

Alex Craig: Yeah. Deposition is basically where an attorney gets to ask questions of a witness or a party to a lawsuit under oath with a court reporter transcribing what’s said, and both sides get to ask questions, and there is a written record of it at the end of it all.

David Craig – Host: And so this is kind of a formal proceeding?

Alex Craig: Yeah. So it’s not in the courtroom. A lot of these are done by Zoom nowadays. So, it can be in person, it can be via Zoom, and sometimes it’s recorded, video recorded, sometimes it’s not video recorded. We record our depositions, but the defense often does not record the depositions of our clients. But it’s not like being in a courtroom. It’s very different. It’s more informal from that standpoint, but it is something that’s still important that can be used at trial at the end of the case.

David Craig – Host: So, this is the other lawyer asking, if you’re a client, it’s the other lawyer asking you questions?

Alex Craig: Yeah, both sides get to take depositions, but we’re here to talk about kind of the plaintiff’s deposition. So our clients, pretty much every case, once the lawsuit’s filed, after written discovery is completed, the defense attorney will request that our client be deposed or they take our client’s deposition. And so that’s when that happens.

David Craig – Host: So now when that happens, our clients, obviously, they get nervous about it, but their lawyers get to be with them in this proceeding. It’s not just the defense lawyer asking questions. You get to be there, right?

Alex Craig: Yeah. So we always have an attorney with our clients for every deposition, and it’ll be a defense lawyer asking the questions, mainly, to start with. But as the attorney for the plaintiff, we also get an opportunity to ask questions at the end. So, if there’s anything that’s missed or anything that we think is important that we need to get on the record, we can ask those questions at the end.

David Craig – Host: So how long does a deposition typically take?

Alex Craig: It really depends on the defense attorney. It depends on the case, but on average, I would say most depositions of our clients take about two hours. I’ve been in some that have taken four, five, six hours before. I’ve also been in some that have been under an hour. It really depends on… it’s very fact-sensitive to the case. And it depends on which attorney you’re against. Some attorneys are very brief, some attorneys are very thorough.

David Craig – Host: So, where are these depositions taken at?

Alex Craig: So we usually, depends on the case. If it’s Zoom, then a lot of times our clients will be at home, or they’ll be at their office or wherever they’re comfortable. And if it’s in person, a lot of times we’ll do it in a conference room here at our office. Even if it is Zoom, sometimes clients will come in and they’ll sit in a conference room and we’ll set up a computer for them, and it’s more comfortable and we can be there with them, even though it’s via Zoom.

David Craig – Host: I would assume, and I know I’ve done these, but I assume clients get kind of nervous about it. So what can you tell clients as far as, I mean is there preparation, what kind of preparation? I mean, what do we do, and what should most lawyers do for their clients before they actually take a deposition?

Alex Craig: In my opinion, and for every attorney here, it’s really important to meet with our clients before a deposition and meet as many times as necessary to make sure that they’re ready for the deposition. Sometimes, that means meeting once before the deposition, sometimes that means meeting two, three, four times. Whatever is necessary for that client and that case, we make sure that no client, we don’t have a client that goes into a deposition that’s not prepared for the deposition. In that prep, we’ll talk about what to expect. We’ll talk about who’s going to be there. We will talk about what typically happens in a deposition, and then we’ll talk about the specifics of their case and what questions will likely come up and what issues are important to make sure that they’re ready to answer.

David Craig – Host: I think it’s important for people to know that we’re not telling you — I mean, we do a lot of preparation — but we’re not here to tell you the answers to the questions. We are really here to help you feel comfortable, so that you understand the process, you think about the questions so that you can give truthful answers. But the preparation, at least from our standpoint, is not to try to help coach people on what to say. And I think sometimes people get confused about that.

Alex Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the most important thing I always tell people is the questions are not really that challenging. They’re about their lives. It’s something they went through, they lived. They know the answers to the questions, for the most part. I mean, it’s rare that they’re going to go in and just be stumped by anything, because they lived it. So, most of the depositions, they’ll start off with just background information: “Tell me about your life, school, where have you lived, organizations you belong to?” Stuff like that.

Everybody’s going to know that stuff. It’s just their life. And then they’re going to ask about the wreck, or the incident that caused the injury. And then they’re going to ask about your medical treatment and your injuries. Generally, in most of the cases we handle, the injuries and the wreck are significant points in their life, and so it’s stuff they’re going to remember.

David Craig – Host: So kind of tell us a little bit, maybe walk us through a little bit about, what do you tell clients when they first come in and they sit down with you and you’re getting them ready for a deposition? What kind of guidance do you give them?

Alex Craig: I always start off talking about what it is, kind of what a deposition is, what to expect, who’s going to be there. A lot of times we know the defense attorneys that are going to be asking the questions. Most of the attorneys we go up against, we’ve seen them before. We do this, this is all we do is personal injury truck wrecks. So. we see a lot of the same defense attorneys. So we know their style, we know typically what kind of questions they ask, how they like to structure their depositions. So if we can give them any insight into that, we’ll talk to them about that.

If there’s multiple defense attorneys, then we’ll talk about each defense attorney that’s going to be there. And then we’ll talk about, generally, what everybody’s trying to do there. The defense attorney, their role at the deposition, they’re trying to gather as much information about your case as they can because it’s usually the only time they get to talk to you face to face. And so they want to know everything that you know about the case.

They also want to get to know who our client is as a person because, ultimately, most cases don’t go to trial… But if they do go to trial, they want to know who’s going to be sitting in front of the jury. Is a jury going to like that person? Are they going to connect with that person in some way? Are they going to know them from church? Are they going to know them from a past employer or a school that they went to? They want to learn everything they can about our client so they’re not surprised by anything at trial, and they can figure out what connections there may be between potential jurors and our clients.

My role at the deposition of our client is I’m there mainly to just listen and make sure there’s nothing that’s not allowed. I can make objections, if necessary. I can also ask questions if I think there’s something that’s missed that’s important. So I’m there listening, making sure that everything goes smoothly. But, for the most part, my role at the deposition is kind of behind the scenes. I’m just listening most of the time.

We talk about what to expect and how to answer questions. The main thing is just be honest; it’s about your life. And then we kind of cover some of the specific things, case-specific things that may come up in the case.

David Craig – Host: Well, I know that obviously a lot of our clients are catastrophically injured, or sometimes they’ve lost a loved one. We do personal injury, so all of our clients are going to suffer some type of injury. I know that sometimes that can be tricky because, if you’re complaining of a traumatic brain injury and you have headaches, dizziness, vertigo, you have a variety of memory issues and cognitive issues, the defense is going to want to look back at your records and see if you had the same kind of problems before the wreck. And that makes sense.

I mean, if you were sitting there trying to decide whether something was caused by a wreck or not, you would want to look at somebody’s prior medical history. The problem is, not everybody remembers exactly everything they’ve ever told a doctor. Or even if they do remember, they have no control of what the doctor puts in their records. So there may be stuff in the records that the defense lawyer, there’s no secrets in a lawsuit, so they get a copy of the records. There may be stuff in there that they don’t even remember saying, or maybe didn’t even say, and the defense has it. That’s got to be one of the bigger focuses, I would assume, in preparing our clients for a deposition.

Alex Craig: In pretty much every case we have, medical records are an important part of the case. Before any deposition, we gather up all the records we can find. If there are records out there, we’ll request them. We’ll get them. We’ll read through them before we meet with the client to prepare for the deposition. We’ll read through them all, and we will pull out anything that we think is important to the case, anything that’s relevant to the case, and we’ll talk about it. We’ll say, “Hey, you had a similar injury, it looks like, back in 2010. Let’s talk about it.” And we’ll go through and we’ll see what the client remembers and anything in the medical records that could be potentially used against them. We’ll talk about it, and we’ll see what the issue is and what the explanation is for it.

David Craig – Host: I would assume that sometimes there’s stuff in records that’s not always accurate.

Alex Craig: Yeah. Sometimes it’s incorrect. Sometimes it’s just the record was inaccurate at the time it was made, or there was just a misunderstanding between the client and the doctor. Sometimes, I’ve had cases where the records are for the wrong person. They gave us the record for some other patient by accident. So, it happens sometimes.

David Craig – Host: What do you tell clients as far as how to present, what to look like or what to dress, how to dress? Is there any rules that you talk about?

Alex Craig: Yeah, in depositions, we generally talk about dressing business casual. Wear something that looks nice, looks presentable, something like you’re going to an important school event for your kids or grandkids or going to church, something like that. You just want to make sure that it looks like you’re taking this seriously and you’re dressed nicely. It’s nothing overly formal, but it’s something you want to make sure that the other side understands that you’re taking this seriously.

You also want to make sure, especially with Zoom depositions nowadays, if you’re doing this at home, you want to make sure the background is something that’s way you want to be presented. The defense is going to look at everything in your background.

They’re going to look, if you’ve got pictures in the background, they’re going to look at them. They’re going to try to use them against you if they can. You want to make sure you’re in a quiet room where you’re away from anyone else. You don’t want to have interruptions. You want to just be in a good place where you have good internet connection and a surrounding that’s conducive to being able to focus on answering the questions.

David Craig – Host: I think that’s extraordinarily important. I mean, you want to look, you have to understand that the way you look, your appearance, it may be used. Especially if it’s a Zoom, they can record that. And sometimes a videographer, like you said, will videotape it, and then that deposition can actually be played at court.

I did a deposition a few years ago where I was deposing a young man, and in fact, it was the son of a judge. And so you would think if anybody knew how to prepare… But he clearly didn’t seem to be prepared, or he just didn’t care.

We did a Zoom deposition, and he was barefoot. He had his feet up on a table, laying back in a chair, and he was vaping, and he would just… We’d ask him questions and he would roll his eyes, and he had all kinds of crazy pictures and posters on his walls. It really was horrible, horrible, it left a horrible impression.

After that case settled, they did pay us. But the defense lawyer said, “I’d like to use that to educate my clients on what not to do.” But that’s something we spend a lot of time making sure people understand that these depositions can be used, and you want to look the way that you would want to look in front of a jury, right?

Alex Craig: Yeah. In Indiana, especially, depositions can be used in trial. If they are recording it, then they can just play the video to the jury. So, if it’s a deposition, you have to assume that a juror is going to watch it at some point. And everybody’s different. For some people, posters on the wall may not offend them. But you have to assume that… you get six random strangers on your jury, one of them may not like something that you have in your background.

You just have to be really careful and think about those things. The way you present yourself, you have to make sure that it’s something that the jurors, potentially, if they see this, they’re not going to be upset by how you’re acting or presenting yourself.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. So, a deposition of a party, so when you file a lawsuit, you’re a party, and if you sue somebody, they’re a party. But in Indiana, and then some federal courts and some other state courts, you can use a party’s deposition for any purpose. So like you were saying, in Indiana, sometimes, they don’t even call the client to the stand.

So clients think, “Okay, I got to get up on the stand and testify.” Well, we will likely call you as a witness, but they can just take the video clips and play those in front of the jury. You have to understand that the deposition, even though it’s more informal, even though it’s not in a courtroom, it is the real deal. It is something that can be used against you, and it has to be something that you take seriously.

Alex Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know from our standpoint, we take defendants’ depositions in almost every case. I mean, in most situations where there is a defendant to depose. We play them all the time at trial. We always record our depositions. A lot of times we’ll just pick what we need for our trial, and we’ll take those clips out, and we’ll play them for the jury.

We don’t even need to bring the defendant up to testify at trial. The other side can do the same thing. If they record it — they don’t even have to record it, they can read it if they wanted to. It doesn’t have to be a video. They can just sit there and read your deposition to the jury, as well. So, it’s really important. You’ve got to make sure it’s, even if it is something where you’re at home in front of a computer, it could end up in the courtroom.

David Craig – Host: Going along the same wave, since it is something that sometimes is videotaped and sometimes played in front of the jury, obviously it’s important how you interact with the defense lawyer. Talk a little bit about that.

Alex Craig: Yeah. That’s one thing we always talk about. You want to be polite, you want to be nice to the defense attorney. Sometimes that can be challenging, depending on the case, depending on the defense attorney. Sometimes things can get heated, and they may get into some sensitive subjects. They may sound accusatory or make you feel like you’ve done something wrong. Even though most of our clients, when they get into a lawsuit, they don’t want to be there. They just happened to be sitting at a red light and got rear ended or whatever it is.

There’s some situation where they didn’t want to be involved in this, and this was thrust into their life. And then to have a defense attorney sit there and make you feel like you did something wrong, even in a case where it’s clearly the other party’s fault, that can be tough sometimes. It can be hard to sit there and just take those accusations and be nice to the person. Most depositions are very pleasant and they’re not confrontational, but there are times where it can be difficult and it can be sensitive.

Even in those scenarios, I always tell people it’s better to just be nice, kill them with kindness, be polite, even if they’re mean to you, a jerk to you, you don’t want to do the same to them. Some defense attorneys, that’s their tactic. They want to poke at you and prod at you to see how you react. And then if you react poorly, it’s a tool they have that they can use later.

They can play that deposition for the jury and make the jury not like you because you were snippy or whatever it is. Or, they know at trial, “Hey, if I ask them about this subject matter, I know that it gets under their skin.” It just gives them a tool that they can use later. Because they know exactly what they’re doing. They’re not being a jerk to you just because they’re a jerk. They’re doing it because they’re trying to win their case, and they want you to look bad in front of the jury. That’s the easiest way for a defense attorney to win, is to make the plaintiff look bad.

David Craig – Host: I think if you’re being deposed, you just have to keep that in mind. One of the reasons they do a deposition is to evaluate you. What will a jury think of you? This is their first test. They don’t get to see you very often. They don’t get to meet you. This is their first test, and they look at you and say, “Okay, what will a jury think of this person? How does this person look? How does this person sound? How does this person answer questions?” So, when you’re being deposed, you have to understand they’re doing this for a reason.

And one of the reasons is to evaluate you and to give information back to the decision-makers, whether it’s the trucking company, whether it’s the insurance company, regardless of who it is, they’re looking and trying to make a decision. That’s one of the key things they look at. And I’ve had cases where the value increased significantly when the defense lawyer said, “Boy, your client is an extraordinarily nice person. Comes off as nice, and a jury’s going to love them.” And that adds value to a case.

I don’t think it should, necessarily. Just because you come off badly, does that really mean you should get less money? But we live in a real world, where you’re judged by six people, in Indiana (and different states have different numbers of people) but you’re judged by a group of people and the jury, and they’re human beings. If they like you, they tend to listen to you, and they tend to find you more credible, and they tend to give you more money. So, that’s something you have to keep in mind.

Alex Craig: And the opposite can be true as well. If you’re in your deposition and you’re arguing with the defense attorney and you’re saying things you shouldn’t say and being a jerk back to them, then some defense attorneys say, “You know what? I think I can beat this person. It’s a case that I should be paying a certain number.” And I’ve had defense attorneys tell me before that, “Your case, off the record, is worth the limits, but I think I can beat your client at trial because they came off so poorly in their deposition that if we go to trial, I think I can beat them and I can look really good to my insurance company because I won a case where I shouldn’t have won — because the jury just didn’t like the plaintiff.” It makes it really difficult to get your case resolved, get your case settled, if the defense attorney thinks they could beat you at trial.

David Craig – Host: Remember that the defense lawyers, and you mentioned this earlier, if the defense lawyer is being mean to you, he or she is being mean to you because they want to test you. If a lawyer’s being nice to you, she or he is being nice to you to see if that works, if that gets you talking, volunteering information. If the lawyers talks fast, they’re talking fast for a reason. If they’re talking slow, they’re talking slow for a reason.

I mean, folks, we do this day in and day out. We know how to get people to talk. Sometimes just silence. I’ll just be quiet in the deposition, and then people will just talk. So, pay attention to what they’re doing. But if they’re doing something, and they’re starting to talk fast, they’re leaning into you and they’re starting to talk mean… Rather than reacting to that, think in your head, “She or he is doing this for a reason.” And then you slow down, you sit back, you take your time, and you answer the questions truthfully.

Alex Craig: It’s also something where we can take breaks at any time. I always tell every client that I take breaks, scheduled breaks every hour. So if we go to the one-hour mark, I’ll take a break. If we go to the two-hour mark, I’ll take a break. In however many hours we go, we’ll take a break. But at the same time, if at any point I have a client that’s feeling like they’re getting aggravated with a defense attorney, or for whatever reason they want to take a break, just take a break.

Even if we’re 15 minutes in and you need to take a break for whatever reason, do it. There’s no limit on how many breaks you can take. There’s no limit on when you can take breaks and when you can’t take breaks. So, if I can tell a client’s getting aggravated or the attorney is getting under their skin or whatever it is, they’re getting them to say stuff they shouldn’t say, I will take a break and say, “Hey, let’s just calm down. The defense attorney, this is what they’re doing to you. They’re just picking at you just to throw you off.” Let them know what’s going on so that they can cool down and get back in and focus on just answering the questions.

David Craig – Host: Are there ever times when you have to step in and object and stop a lawyer from being abusive?

Alex Craig: It’s very rare, but every once in a while there are situations where we have to object. Most of the time I tell people that, in a deposition, the rules are very different than trial. And so there’s very few objections most of the time. But there are things that are off limits, like, for instance, attorney-client privilege. Anything that our clients talk about with us or our office is protected by attorney-client privilege. So if they get into those conversations in any way, then we would object and we would tell the client not to answer the question. Or, if there are times where they’re twisting words or making up evidence or whatever it is, there are times where objections are necessary, and we jump in and we’ll make sure to protect the client in those circumstances.

David Craig – Host: Are there certain types of questions that you always warn people about or they should pay particular attention to and not be tricked into given the wrong answers?

Alex Craig: Yeah, there’s a variety. They like to try to get clients to guess on stuff. That’s a big thing. I always talk to clients about [their] medical records. Obviously, the defense attorney is going to have reviewed your medical records. They’re going to know your medical records better than you know them and better than you’ll ever know them. And they’ve got them in front of them when they’re asking the questions.

So, the main thing is, don’t start guessing… I had one recently where the defense attorney was just asking questions: “Well, do you remember telling Dr. so-and-so whatever on this date?”

And I’m looking at the record, and it doesn’t say that. They didn’t say that, but they’re just trying to get you to agree with them — “Well, if that’s what the record says, then I’ll just agree with them.” But you can’t just assume that what they’re saying is necessarily correct. You just have to be careful not to guess it. If you don’t remember having a conversation with a doctor about something, then you just be honest and tell them, “I don’t remember that.” That’s fine.

David Craig – Host: Sometimes lawyers will, defense lawyers, will try to put words in your mouth or try to imply things. And I always use an example: “So when did you stop beating your dog?” Well, that implies that you beat your dog. So how do you answer that question? You say, “Well, I…” So you have to clarify it. You can’t leave a false fact out there. You would have to say, “Look, I don’t beat my dog. My dog’s laying back here sleeping right now.” But you don’t let them say something false and then leave it. Or sometimes they’ll ask you two questions, ask you a compound question.

Well, if you can’t answer one way, maybe one’s yes and one’s no, which one are you answering? And so if you just answer yes or no, it could be confusing and they could take it out of context and use it against you. So if you’re asked a compound question, you just have to say, “Okay, which question do you want me to answer?” Or, “Yes to the first part, and no to the second part.”

Now, Alex, in our firm, the attorney sitting with you is going to be there to make sure that doesn’t happen. But I always tell my clients, it shows, again, strength if you can figure that out on your own. If you can show the lawyer that you can’t be tripped up, then that helps because then they know at trial they’re not going to get away with that. In fact, if they try to get away with it at trial… Sometimes lawyers will do things in a deposition they never would do at a trial because the jury is sitting there watching, and the jury would punish them for that.

Alex Craig: Yeah, exactly.

David Craig – Host: So, what else? Anything else as far as depositions? Like if your wife Angie was getting ready to go in and be deposed, anything you would tell her about the process or about how to handle herself or anything else to do with depositions?

Alex Craig: The main thing is, I always ask clients if there’s anything that they think’s important to get in. And if there’s something that is really important to them in the case, we’ll talk about it in the preparation. And if it’s something that is important to get on the record, I can always ask those questions at the end and say, “Hey, tell me about whatever it is that’s important,” and we can get it on the record. At the same time, we don’t always have to get everything on the record because, in our client’s deposition, it’s the defense attorney that’s taking the deposition.

They’re the ones that choose what the questions are. So, if they don’t ask about a subject that is important — they just never even ask about it — it doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about it later if we go to trial. It doesn’t mean that it’s off limits now because they didn’t ask about it. I always tell people, “Just focus on what the questions are that they’re asking you.” If they ask you a question and you think that they should ask you a different question because that would get you to something else that’s important, you don’t need to worry about that.

You’re just focused on answering that question that’s in front of you. If they forget about something or they just completely miss a whole subject that’s important, I can make that call at the end of the deposition. If it’s something I think, “Hey, I want to just get this on the record for whatever reason,” I can do that. And I can ask that question. We can talk about it during the break, as well.
If we take a break and you say, “Hey, he didn’t ask me about this,” or “She didn’t ask me about that,” I can always bring it up later on. But it’s one of those things that you’re just there to answer questions, the questions they ask you, and don’t feel like you have to constantly throw other stuff in. “Well, if they’re asking me about this, I might as well tell them about that.” Well, they may not care about that. It’s okay. If the defense attorney doesn’t get everything out there, then that’s their loss.

David Craig – Host: I think it’s important, and that’s why your attorney is prepared. They meet with you. They know your case. They know how an injury affects you. Unfortunately, sometimes the defense lawyers try to cut you off on the damage part. They’ll want you to talk as much as possible about how the wreck happened and all that stuff. But when it comes to how an injury has affected you, oftentimes…

I think good lawyers, good defense lawyers, want to know that; good insurance companies want to know that because how do you value a case if you don’t know how it’s impacting somebody?

But there are some lawyers out there who are playing it out in trial, and so they would rather you not talk about how something’s impacted you. Now, like Alex says, if they don’t ask you the question, then there’s no harm. Even if you don’t mention it, then it can’t be used against you. What I see sometimes is lawyers will say, “Well, tell me how has this injury affected you?” And a client starts off saying, “Well, you know what? I struggle around the house…”

And, before you can get any more out, they interrupt you and say, “Well, let’s talk about it around the house. How is this affecting you around the house?” You talk about it, and then they go on and no one asks you to finish that question. Now, we’re there, and we already know how it’s impacted you. So, we’ll catch that. But it’s also good for our clients to say, “Okay, well, do you want to know how else it affects me?” Because I think that impresses the defense.

The defense lawyers are taking these depositions for three reasons.

One is to obtain information. They obtain information because that’s how they evaluate cases. They need to know: what are your medical bills, what are your injuries, how is it affecting you, what’s your lost wages, what’s your future medical bills, what’s your future lost wages. All those things, they need to know that information so they’re asking you.

The second way is to lock in your story. They want to lock it in and have you on oath, under oath, because you take these depositions under oath. They put you under oath, and then they can use that statement at trial. If you say something different, they can impeach you with that statement. So that’s the second reason they take it, lock it in so they can use it for impeachment.

And then the third reason is to evaluate, what will a jury think of you? Will they like you or not like you? Those are three reasons that you would take a deposition. On providing the information, we want to make sure the good information is in the deposition if you’re asked.

Alex Craig: Yeah, exactly. And that’s one thing we always talk about before a deposition, in the prep, is I’ll ask the client, “Spend some time thinking about it, too.” Because it’s not something that you can just, a lot of times, if it’s been two years since the wreck or whatever, every case is different. You may not be able to just sit there and tell me every way that this has impacted your life. And it may be hard to remember the early days because it’s been so long, or it’s not always a long time, but sometimes there’s times where you may have to think about it a little bit more.

And so I always tell people, “Hey, go home and think about it. We’ll talk about it during the prep, but think about it in your daily life when you’re getting ready in the morning, getting dressed in the morning.”

“Oh yeah, it’s hard for me to put a shirt on,” or “It’s hard for me to tie my shoes now.” Or whatever it is, think about it while you’re living your life, doing your hobbies, doing your job, taking care of your kids, doing chores around the house, think about those things and write it down. Anytime you think of something that’s changed as a result of this wreck or this injury, write it down and send that to me.

And then we’ll talk about it more once you have a good list, and I can help jog your memory on certain things. But then I know those things, and we will have discussed those things before we get into the deposition so that you’re ready, you’ve thought about it, you’ve spent time thinking about it, so that you’re ready for that question and you can go in there and give an answer on that. And then, like we said before, if they cut you off and you don’t get it all out there, I can always ask at the end and say, “Hey, are there any other issues that you have as a result of this wreck?” The client can then go through those other issues that we both know about because we’ve talked about them beforehand.

David Craig – Host: Clients sometimes hear about an “errata sheet” at the end of the deposition. Can you tell us a little bit about does the client get to read the deposition? What is an errata sheet?

Alex Craig: Yeah, so every deposition, once it’s completed, the court reporter will transcribe it, will actually finalize it, type it all up. Usually that takes a week or two, and then they’ll send us the transcript. And then we’ll send the transcript to the client, and the client will get to read through it and make sure it’s been transcribed accurately.

That’s important because a lot of times there may be a misunderstanding, and you said one thing and the court reporter didn’t understand what you were saying. You can make corrections on that. Or if there’s a misspelling or something that you notice like that, you can make corrections. And that’s where you would do it, is on the errata sheet. You write out whatever it is that needs to be corrected, and then you sign it and send it back to the court reporter, and the court reporter will make those corrections.

David Craig – Host: What if you have a client who doesn’t speak English, it’s not their natural language, and so they’re a little worried about not understanding a question or maybe giving an answer that’s not right?

Alex Craig: Well, if it’s a situation where they would rather do it in another language, we can have interpreters. Often, we do depositions all the time with interpreters. Whatever language they’re comfortable with, we can have an interpreter for that. And so then they can hear the question. What will happen is the defense attorney will say the question in English, and then the interpreter will translate it to whatever the language is for you so you can hear it in your natural language, and then you can answer in that language as well. The interpreter will translate it to English. And so at the end of the day, we’ll have an English transcript, but it’s something that you can understand and be confident that you’re answering correctly.

If it’s a situation where we have a client that’s comfortable with English, they can converse in English just fine, but there may be a misunderstanding for whatever reason, I always tell people, if you don’t understand the question, ask for clarification. There’s nothing wrong with it — and this goes for people that English is your first language. Oftentimes, attorneys will use words that we don’t use in normal language when we’re just talking in normal conversation. So, if there’s ever a time where a client does not understand the question, or there’s a specific word they don’t quite understand, ask for clarification, there’s nothing wrong with that.

David Craig – Host: Well, one last thing I’d like to add is that our firm, at Craig, Kelley & Faultless, we handle things a little bit differently. A lot of law firms handle cases, where one lawyer handles a hundred files or whatever, and that one lawyer does everything. In our firm, we don’t do that. We divide things up based upon who’s the best person to do a particular job. I do a lot of depositions where I take depositions of the defendant, but you very rarely will see me preparing a client for depositions. There’s better people in my office that do that.

Some lawyers do both. Some lawyers ask, take depositions and also prepare people for depositions. But preparing for a client’s deposition is completely different than preparing to take someone else’s — the defendant, the truck driver’s — deposition. It’s completely different. Taking witness depositions is completely different, and some lawyers are really better at one than the other. Some lawyers are better at research, some lawyers are better at writing and brief writing and jury instructions. In our firm, don’t be surprised that you’ll be working with several different lawyers in our firm, and the person who’s preparing your deposition may or may not be the person who takes the defendant’s deposition. Anything else, Alex, that you think that we should add?

Alex Craig: I don’t think so. I think we’ve covered it.

David Craig – Host: All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening to another episode of After the Crash.

This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website CKFLAW.com. Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, “Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families,” which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, CKFLAW.com.