Time your client's appearance.Should your client appear in the courtroom during trial? If so, when? The answers depend on the severity of his or her injury. If a severely injured in·jure tr.v. in·jured, in·jur·ing, in·jures 1. To cause physical harm to; hurt. 2. To cause damage to; impair. 3. client appears in the courtroom for too long, jurors might get used to the injury, observe how well the plaintiff seems to be coping with it, and reduce the damages accordingly. Deciding when your client should testify To provide evidence as a witness, subject to an oath or affirmation, in order to establish a particular fact or set of facts. Court rules require witnesses to testify about the facts they know that are relevant to the determination of the outcome of the case. is also important. Sometimes you do not have much flexibility about when to put the plaintiff on the stand, such as when he or she is the only witness who can establish necessary elements of proof or present the trial story in a coherent way. If you can be flexible, call your client when his or her testimony will provide maximum benefit. If you can create an empathetic em·pa·thet·ic adj. Empathic. em  pa·thet i·cal·ly adv. picture of
your client by presenting other liability and damages witnesses first,
saving your client for last or close to last builds suspense SUSPENSE. When a rent, profit a prendre, and the like, are, in consequence of the unity of possession of the rent, &c., of the land out of which they issue, not in esse for a time, they are said to be in suspense, tunc dormiunt, but they may be revived or awakened. Co, Litt. 313 a. and
expectation. If you do not think your client will be a particularly good
witness, however, saving the testimony until the end of your case could
undo To restore the last editing operation that has taken place. For example, if a segment of text has been deleted or changed, performing an undo will restore the original text. Programs may have several levels of undo, including being able to reconstruct the original data for all edits the positive impact that other witnesses made.
Patricia C. Bobb Chicago, Illinois |
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