Why Must Read Winning at Cross-Examination: A Modern Approach for Depositions and Trials?

Most cross-examinations are an unwitting showcase of missed opportunities. Tragically, the lawyers usually don't even realize what they missed, or how much better they could have done with just a little more work and focus. Read, a practicing trial lawyer as well as prolific author, adds this much-needed book to his collection of excellent advocacy titles. He dispels many myths and lays out simple principles any lawyer can follow to improve their trial performance. Read understands that cross is the lawyer's chance to tell your own client's story. It is an opportunity to have opposing witnesses agree with you under oath- or look foolish by trying not to. Chapters 2 through 4 teach you the core of Read's techniques. But the book is more ambitious than just a how-to manual. After teaching you how to do it, the last 2/3 of the book shows its principles in action in famous trials by great trial lawyers. Read interviewed many of them for this book. And he doesn't just add dry transcripts- Read sets up each situation, narrates it, and explains it afterward, so you can understand what the trial lawyer did, why they did it, and why it worked (or failed). I was impressed by the many examples from Mark Lanier's trials. Read shows you how Lanier gets ready, reviewing documents and putting together a folder and outline for every witness. As he says, Lanier is the "best prepared person in the courtroom." Being organized, in the right way, is the game changer, as Lanier says. Even as the reader watches Lanier examine scholarly experts, you realize that Lanier is just employing simple techniques that you can use in any case. It all comes down to hard work and preparation. But knowing how to prepare is the key. Which is where this book comes in. There are other great real-life examples- David Boies's work in the Perry case that overturned California's Proposition 8, is a great example of how to attack an expert. Boies applies techniques explained by Read, to devastating effect. I was also impressed by the criminal defense lawyers in the George Zimmerman case. Read explains how they took a witness the prosecution should never have called, and used their cross-examination to obtain testimony devastating to the prosecution. If you try cases, you should know how to cross-examine. Whatever your experience level, and whatever amount of time you have devoted so far to learning how to cross-examine, I highly recommend this book.