Ethics of Working with Witnesses

course

COURSE INFO

  • Presentation Date 1/24/2020
  • Next Class Time 12:00 PM CT
  • Duration 60 min.
  • Format Teleseminar
  • Activity Code:   214764
  • Ethics Credits 1 hour(s)


Course Price: $79.00
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COURSE DESCRIPTION

Preparing witnesses – whether fact witnesses or experts – for deposition or trial or conferring with them during breaks in testimony fraught with ethical issues. Expert witnesses are paid for their time, not their testimony. Though they may be hired to support a client’s view of the facts, there are limits to how experts can be coached. There are also real limits to how attorneys can prompt fact witnesses, for instance to “not remember” unfavorable facts. There are also significant ethical issues involving how to handle inadvertently produced privileged documents and when testimony goes in an unexpected adverse direction. This program will provide you with a practical guide to the ethical issues and traps of working with witnesses.

  • Paying witnesses for their time versus their testimony
  • Prompting a witness to “not remember” unfavorable testimony
  • Conferring with witnesses during deposition breaks and the limits of what you advise
  • Dishonest witnesses – what are your obligations to the court and your client?
  • How to handle the inadvertent production of privileged documents
  • Drafting witness affidavits without interviewing the witness

 

Speaker:

John M. Barkett is a partner in the Miami office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP, where his litigation practice encompasses contract disputes, employment, antitrust, trademark and environmental and toxic tort litigation.  He also has a substantial practice as an arbitrator, mediator, facilitator and allocator in a variety of substantive contexts.  He is former co-chair of the Environmental Litigation Committee of the ABA’s Section of Litigation.  Mr. Barkett serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law.  He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.