✏️ Legal Pad
The Art of the Deposition (And Why Lawyers Make Terrible Deponents)
Depositions are a strange exercise in discipline.
The rules are simple: listen to the question, answer the question that was actually asked, and stop talking. No commentary. No editorializing. No reactions. Just the facts necessary to answer the question and nothing more.
Simple in theory. Harder in practice.
Which is why the recent deposition of former President Bill Clinton in connection with the Epstein litigation was such an interesting case study in the art, and difficulty, of giving testimony. Strip away the politics and the headlines, and what you’re left with is a deposition involving one of the most charismatic, conversational human beings on the planet.
And that is precisely the problem.
The qualities that make someone persuasive in a room, warmth, personality, humor, storytelling, are exactly the qualities that make someone dangerous as a deponent. Depositions reward restraint. The best witnesses are often the least interesting ones: calm, neutral, monotone and slightly boring.
Clinton, famously personable and gregarious, reacts to exhibits, smiles at photographs, and engages with the moment. For a trial lawyer watching the proceedings, it’s the equivalent of watching someone lean over the rail on a cruise ship during rough seas. You know it probably won’t end well.
Witnesses should never react to evidence in real time. They shouldn’t show surprise, amusement, annoyance, or curiosity. Every reaction becomes testimony, whether intended or not.
And the irony here is unavoidable: Clinton is a lawyer.
Which proves an unfortunate but enduring truth about litigation. Lawyers might actually be the worst deponents there are. We spend our entire careers explaining things, arguing things, clarifying things, and persuading people. The deposition room requires the exact opposite skill set.
Sometimes the most powerful answer in a deposition is simply:
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I don’t recall.”
Anything more is often where the trouble begins.
💡 Sidebar
The South’s Annual Pollen Apocalypse
There are four seasons in South Carolina: summer, fall, winter, and pollen.
Right now, we’re on the cusp of the latter.
Every surface in the state is coated in a fine yellow powder that looks like someone dumped industrial quantities of parmesan cheese into the atmosphere. You could wash your car at noon and by dinner it looks like it’s been sitting in a pollen blizzard for three weeks. Futility at it’s finest.
Porches, normally one of the great luxuries of Southern living, become unusable. Furniture turns yellow. Tables turn yellow. The air is yellow.
Pets don’t help matters.
A dog goes outside for its daily constitutional and returns looking like a mobile pollen delivery system, shedding microscopic allergens across the house like some kind of biological weapon.
Short of emigrating back to the Keys for the entire spring, I’ve yet to come up with a viable solution. Like that case that you know you’re going to lose, but have to try anyway, pollen is inevitable. The trick is to walk into the courtroom (or yard) tall and get it over with.
And don’t ever itch your eyes.
⚖️ Closing Arguments
If pollen season is bad, moving is worse.
Moving weekend came and went, not exactly without a hitch.
By the time the moving truck arrived, the house wasn’t packed quite to my liking. Which meant we had to pivot and improvise in real time. Boxes appeared where boxes had not previously existed. Items that once seemed important suddenly seemed… less important.
My wife may eventually notice that a certain percentage of her belongings were quietly reassigned to the category of “items that did not survive the relocation.” But that is a discovery process best left for another day.
The weekend also added another name to the injured reserve list. My father-in-law took a rather impressive tumble down the deck stairs. Fortunately, the diagnosis required only a cold beer and not orthopedic surgery, which we’ll count as a win.
Meanwhile, my carpet installers wrapped up around 11:30 PM the night before the move, which gave me the lamest possible excuse to stay awake late- about the same energy as an insurance defense attorney emailing discovery responses to you at midnight.
But in the end, we got it done.
And once the dust settled, literally and figuratively, the chaos gave way to calm.
Moving feels a lot like preparing for trial. Trials are messy, stressful, and unpredictable. Things go sideways. Plans change. Unexpected problems appear.
But none of that matters because when the lights are on, the presentation has to look calm, organized, and deliberate. The jury can never see the chaos ensuing.
Though they may get a peek of that chaos if my father-in-law decides to sue me for premises liability.
Court is in recess- see you next Friday.
