"Every trial lawyer needs some stock cross examination questions to pull out of the bag.  Try these."

Leonard Bucklin
Civil Trial Attorney

Every good litigation attorney needs to have some standard questions to use in the situations which are common in litigation. So below --- free to you --- for your personal use, but it is copyrighted and should not be reproduced for others --- is a form outline of questions that you will want to have ready during a trial when an adverse witness is in the witness chair. Think about these questions and be ready to use them when they are needed. Put these stock cross-exam questions on a page in your trial notebook and read them over before each trial. 

This is a Power Litigation™ article or BucklinTrial Notebook™ article
authored by Leonard Bucklin, a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.
Fellowship is by invitation only, and is limited to 500 trial lawyers in the United States.
Trial lawyers are invited to become Fellows only after an extremely careful vetting process
that includes discreet inquiries of both judges and trial lawyers of high standing.

LTF #WIT0503 Standard Questions to Use Against Adverse Witness © Leonard Bucklin

[You want to rattle the witness into answering faster, and also tell the jury to suspect the witness because he is taking too long in answering to really be telling the truth. Ask in quick succession.]

• Are you thinking of the answer to give?
• Did you hear the question?
• Did you understand the question?
• Are you trying to think of the best answer to give?
• Don= t you want to answer the question?

• Were you examined under oath on (date) at (place)?
• Your attorney was present? Court reporter?
• Sworn to tell the truth? Your attorney had prepared you for the depositions?
• I= m going to read a question from your deposition and the answer.

[You then read to the witness the question and his/her answer.]

[Then, do NOT ask yet whether the answer was true, instead ask the following question.]

• Did I read that correctly?

[Optionally, at this point you can turn to the judge and offer the question and answer into evidence as an admission under the evidence rule regarding exceptions to the hearsay rule. Whether or not you do so, continue with the following questions.]

• I=m showing you the signature page. Is that your signature, saying the deposition was true?
• Is your memory of the accident better today than it was on [date of deposition]?
• Let me read that question and answer back to you. Listen to it carefully, and then I will ask you a question about your answer [read question and answer]
• Was that answer true when you gave it?

• [Read the written material to the witness, then ask the witness the following.]
• Did I read that correctly?

[Point out that it was an argument, and not a fact, by quickly saying something like either one of the two following items.]

• That is for the jury to decide.
• Your attorney can do the arguing, I want facts from you. If you don= t know the fact I am asking you about, just tell us you do not know. Here is my next fact question. "........?."

The above, and more of these form standard cross-examination questions,  can be downloaded into your computer in PDF format, for you to edit and print out from your own computer. Here they are