Attorneys who defend tort suits | Personal Injury Attorney Vancouver WA

Attorneys who defend tort suits. Personal Injury Attorney Vancouver WA with diverse litigation case experience and a strong track record in successfully defending tort suits in Vancouver WA and Portland Oregon. If there is any litigation by way of suit or arbitration, there will be times when you are questioned by an attorney for the defendant and/or the defendant’s insurer. That would primarily be in deposition, trial, or an arbitration. A deposition is a pre-trial or pre-arbitration proceeding at which you, your attorney, the defense attorney, and a court reporter meet so that the defense attorney can question you and what it said can be memorialized in a written transcrip.

There are things that it is helpful for you to understand about defense attorneys in general in these types of proceedings. First, they have enough intelligence to have graduated from four years of undergraduate school and three years of law school, and to pass a state-wide bar examination. Secondly, they frequently present themselves well. They are often pleasant, engaging people who know how to conduct themselves in these proceedings. They frequently have a lot of experience doing that. They have been trained to do it in seminars and by their law firms. Some are employees of the insurance companies for the defendant who they are representing. They frequently have the benefit of professional collaborations with other attorneys who defend tort suits and they work with in developing strategies and lines of questioning.

However, there is one aspect of many of them that you should understand. They are not there to be your friend. They are there to obtain information, to learn about you and your claims. What they learn can be used against you in their defense of the person who injured you, and they will be looking for that in your answers to their questions. On the flip side, the information can also provoke settlement negotiations on your case.

Another aspect of many of them that you want to understand is that they can be very friendly and engaging. They may joke with you. They may be genuinely nice people. However, they are there to do a job and not to be your friend.

Some claimants may be intimidated by an intelligent, knowledgeable, friendly attorney. However, when you meet and interact with them, (which will always be in the presence of your attorney), you are not interacting with them to make a new friend who you will get to know and socialize with. This is not like making a social acquaintance with someone. For a defense attorney this will be all business even if it might appear otherwise. It must be that way. So, you will not want to open up and engage with them like you would a new social acquaintance that you are interested in getting to know.

Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to be intimidated. You do not want to make it your goat to please any defense attorney. You want to steel yourself to entirely ignore anything they say or do that expresses irritation or displeasure with what you say. However, you want to be honest, open, and straight-forward in responding to the questions you will be asked because the responses you give are for the benefit of the jury in your case, not for the benefit of the defense attorney.

With respect to any responses you give, your mission should be to talk to the jury even though in depositions there is no jury there. The deposition testimony that you give can be provided to the jury in your case. In trial it is important to keep in mind that it is the jury that will be rendering a verdict in your case. The defense attorney is quite irrelevant to your case; the defense attorney only gets to ask questions and sometimes object to a response. The defense attorney does not get to make any decisions that determine the outcome of your case.

There are some decisions that a judge may make, but the judge does not make factual determination about your case or retire to the jury room and vote along with the jury. So, really, it is only the jury who counts if your case goes to a full and final verdict. Your response must be to and for the jury. Some witnesses who testify a lot, when asked a question, turn to the jury and provide their answer rather than continue to address the defense attorney.

In other words, you should not care one wit whether a defense attorney likes you or believes you. Sometimes a defense attorney will react to your answers as though you said something wrong or unbelievable. What the defense attorney might think does not matter. It only matters what the jury thinks. So, whether you are answering questions in deposition or trial always approach your answers as though you are giving them solely for the benefit of and to the jury. It is the jury that must believe you. That is why it is imperative that your answers are straight forward and completely honest. The jury will not react well to anything else. It is they that you want to think well of you in the trial. It is your personal credibility with the jury that will help determine the outcome of legal proceedings in your favor. What a defense attorney might think simply does not matter, and you should not worry for an instant what the defense attorney might think about any answer that you give. But you should care greatly that you are truthful and straight forward because it is the jury who will decide your case and your personal credibility with the jury will mean everything.

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