EP 815- Pro Tips for Exhibits

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, a podcast about successfully navigating law and life. Featuring the women trial attorneys at the Simon Law Firm.

Amy Gunn:

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. I am Amy Gunn, and today I am joined by Liz Livy, Erica Slater and Elizabeth McNulty. Hello ladies.

Liz Lenivy:

Hey. Hi. Hello.

Amy Gunn:

I just got back from a conference where the topic was, it was actually a deposition college and I was served on the faculty and we had some younger lawyers who came to gain some experience on taking depositions of various witnesses, including experts, plaintiffs and fact witnesses and eyewitnesses. And so we spent some time doing that. It was so enjoyable. I really am so excited about the new generation of lawyers and particularly those in this organization because everyone is so earnest about wanting to do good work. One topic I wanted to pull out and present today to you ladies is exhibits. And I know it doesn’t sound very sexy, but I found that it was something that some of our students struggled with in terms of the correct way to get an exhibit in front of a witness. And my faculty partner, Perry Fisher from Asheville, North Carolina, shout out Perry had some wonderful quotes and advice and I tried to write all of them down. I’m hoping that he will do a book one day because they’re so much fun. One of the things that Perry offered to our group that really stuck with me was an acronym, MIAO. And Liz, we were practicing just a bit before our episode. What did you think that sounded like?

Liz Lenivy:

Well, from one cat owner to another MIA kind of sounds like meow, Unless you’re a Kentucky born and bred cat owner like Amy, and then it’s Mi meow.

Amy Gunn:

So Perry Fisher, you’re from North Carolina, so we’ve just maybe given you just a little bit extra for your acronym. It stands for mark, identify, authenticate and offer. And the reason why that is so useful is because there was a lot of inconsistency with trying to get an exhibit in front of a witness and to properly and succinctly and efficiently have that witness identify it and get it to a place where it can actually be admitted or often into evidence. So it’s really as simple as, Mr. Jones, I’m handing you what’s been marked as exhibit one. Can you identify this for us? And I usually say us because at this point it may be shown to the jury, and I want us all the jurors and all of us to learn what this is about. So Mr. Jones, can you identify this for us? Then Mr. Jones will presumably say, this is a photograph I took, this is the report that I wrote.

This is my signature on the back. It depicts the scene accurately and authenticating language and laying the foundation, which then equals its admissibility or being able to be offered into evidence as long as it’s relevant. So of course we know that evidence has to have two parts. It has to have proper foundation and relevance. We’re going to put relevance aside for the time being and focus on the foundation. I just thought, because I know early in my career it took me some time to really get comfortable with just handing somebody something and say, tell us what this is because you feel like you should be the one describing it. Mr. Jones, this is a three page document and it’s got some handwriting on it. It looks like maybe it was done a few weeks ago and you go on and on and on and maybe you forget to market. But this is the best and easiest way I think to get it done. It is my understanding that different jurisdictions do things different ways because I had another student who indicated in his jurisdiction, everything kind of gets marked at the end or you talk about it and then you mark it. I’m going to hand you a document, what is it? Okay, we’re going to mark that exhibit 12. I think my practice is and that practice in this jurisdiction, and frankly I think it is just a little more simple to mark and hand it,

Liz Lenivy:

But keep in mind too, we also, especially in our two week med mal cases, have an agreement with the judge on the other side where at the end of evidence or at the end of the day or at a break after a witness, we may offer all of the exhibits outside of the jury’s hearing so it doesn’t get so clunky as we go through.

Amy Gunn:

And I have been rethinking that. That is definitely the way I’ve practiced at this point. So switching from depositions to trial exhibits, it would be very similar. I’m handing you or we’re showing you what’s been marked exhibit four, can you describe this for us? And it does that and you lay the foundation, but you don’t then turn to the judge and say, your Honor, I’m asking for the admission of exhibit four. You wait until the end and even to the point of resting my case subject to the admission of exhibits, which no one really gets that upset about, but then it really is incumbent upon you to remember to do that. And so the last couple of cases I’ve tried particularly because one was in federal court and that ain’t a thing. You do it right then I think it’s a little bit easier maybe.

I agree, it could be clunky, but it also is just one more question and then you have in that moment, if there’s going to be an objection safe foundation, you can cure it. And the same is true in a deposition, but if you wait and rest your case subject to the admission of exhibits and then the defendant comes up with some sort of foundation objection, the witness might be gone. Now, I think what you’re describing, Erica, and has always also been my experience is we’ve got a good relationship. This is kind of how we do it with lawyers that we tried cases with. But I don’t know, I feel like it’s safer to just go ahead and ask for the admission and if there’s any objection, get it all worked out. If not, it’s in and you don’t have to worry

Liz Lenivy:

About it. I think it also depends at trial, if it’s business records that have been authenticated by an affidavit or medical records or something, everyone understands that those are being used by both parties and you don’t anticipate any issue. Also, maybe if there are exhibits that everyone’s seen before in depositions and it’s just evidence that everyone has been using, that makes more sense. I think what you’re describing too, to be more cautious is if you’re coming up with something new or with something to that was only brought up for impeachment or something like that. And I don’t think that necessarily has to be all one way or the other. And I think the clunkiness is yes, of course, it’s one more question, but then the judge has to say to the other counsel any objection and if there’s multiple parties, any objection everybody has to announce, and I don’t know, sometimes maybe that’s fine to catch your breath, but I am also prone to lose my train of thought sometimes if I get distracted. So I don’t know, it’s just a stylistic thing

Amy Gunn:

Too, and I can see different circumstances calling for different action. So as you’re describing with what are essentially going to be joint exhibits, I mean I think in those situations maybe you can even ask for a stipulation before, a stipulation to admit before you even get started on some of the easy ones. But that just goes, it sort of points up that this issue that I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that I have taken exhibits and the admissibility of exhibits for granted most of my career because I feel like it gets in the moment, it makes you sweat for a second, but you work it out. And I’m recognizing now that you don’t even have to have that moment of stress, is this going to come in? What am I going to do with this? If you start doing the right way, so to speak in depositions and maintain that same style all the way through into trial. Elizabeth, have you had any issues in depositions with fights or objections about different exhibits?

Elizabeth McNulty:

I feel like in depositions, at least here in Missouri, you can pretty much use whatever you want with any expert. A lot of our depositions are remote and that way it makes it a lot easier to pull up whatever kind of exhibit you want to use and show the witness and they’ll tell you if they’re familiar with it or not. I don’t find that there’s a whole lot of procedure necessary to showing them certain exhibits, but I also find that there’s a lot less fighting, especially in med mal cases. I feel like these issues come up a lot more in product liability cases, just because the documents are generally, they’re a lot more hot docs and product liability cases, med mal cases, it’s generally just the records unless you’re dealing with experts. And so the records are what they are and everyone’s using them, so you can’t really fight about the admissibility of those.

So I feel like depositions aren’t as contentious when it comes to using exhibits, at least in my experience. But I think that’s when you get really lax about it. And then when it comes to trial, you realize that there’s a whole procedure to this. And when you’ve been watching a lot of really experienced trial lawyers doing it, and then when you’re a younger lawyer doing it, you realize that I think people don’t pay attention to the more experienced trial lawyers doing it. They just expect that they know how to do it. So they don’t even, opposing counsel isn’t paying attention to you all trying to admit exhibits, so they’re not going to object whether you’re doing it the right way or not. So we follow the way you’re doing it and then when we try to do it that way, we get the objection. Maybe we’re following a more experienced lawyer who isn’t necessarily following the proper procedure.

Amy Gunn:

Yes.

Elizabeth McNulty:

You get to the habit of doing it the way you think it’s done because you’ve been doing it this way for 15, 20 years, but it’s actually not the right way. But you’ve tried a hundred cases and no one’s ever called you on it, but they call me on it and I’m like, wait, what? And you’re like, well, I’ve seen a bunch of people do it this way and the judge doesn’t care. My opposing counsel doesn’t care. They’re like, well, you’re wrong. And I’m like, well that’s unfortunate. I don’t dunno what to tell. Lemme

Amy Gunn:

Try something else. Yeah, maybe I don’t need this exhibit.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, that gets you in a lot of trouble. So any young lawyers pay attention to this podcast episode, take some notes,

Amy Gunn:

Meow to, yeah. Liz, do you have any procedure or logistical way that you mark exhibits in depositions?

Erica Slater:

Yes. And this has been more of a recent development. I think really firm wide, we have gotten better at streamlining, trying to be more efficient because being at the stage I am in my career, it’s interesting, I feel like the first half of my career, we did it the old way, now we’re entering the second half. So I have this kind of even balance comparing the two, but it seemed like the way that I was initially taught to take depositions for example, was each witness, I would just start with one. Alright, Ms. Jones, I’m going to hand you exhibit one. Let’s work through 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Okay, great. And then I would go and take the Dr. Parker I, I’m going to take your deposition and where do I start again? I’m at one again and it’s just Parker 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And where that would get confusing though is as we’re getting into trial now, what was Parker five is suddenly exhibit 43.

And where I think that that would get really confusing was with video depositions, right? Because well this witness, maybe I’m using exhibit 2, 3, 4, whatever again, but exhibits two, three and four at the actual trial are completely different records. So that’s where I was just, it was driving me nuts. And I don’t know if John came up with this, I don’t know if it was one of the paralegals, I don’t know who exactly to give credit for, but they started this process where they would basically, each witness gets their own number. And I think what Amy you and I have been doing on cases, and this is shout out to Claudia, our paralegal who’s who’s been great about this is kind of going in increments of maybe five or 10. So for example, Ms. Jones is witness 50, so all of her exhibits are going to be 50 dash one, 50 dash two, 50 dash three.

And then when we get to Dr. Parker, now Dr. Parker is witness 60 and he’s 60 dash one, 60 dash two. And we don’t have to worry about repeating these numbers. Again, everyone gets their own individual numbers. Now obviously if you’ve used, and I’ve had this come up recently actually, where I’m reusing the same records, medical records for example, in different doctors’ depositions. I will say I’ve previously marked this as exhibit 85 dash three from dr. so-and-SO’S deposition. So I’m not going to remarket for this new witness, but it’s just a way to keep everything organized and Claudia is able to start developing the exhibit list faster. So that way when, and this is really helpful, when you’re starting to get ready for trial and you’re starting to build your outline, you want to start incorporating the exhibits into your outline. You already know what all of the exhibit numbers are. You’re not waiting on someone to start building out this huge exhibit list. And this is especially helpful when you’ve got these big complicated cases like we do where there are easily going to be dozens and dozens and dozens if not hundreds of records and exhibits. So that’s the strategy that we’ve been employing, and I think it’s been working out great. It’s made my life and I hope the lives of the people that we work with much easier.

Amy Gunn:

I agree. And for example, if there’s an expert and that expert’s number is 50, as you say, then that entire file, that expert file is going to get numbers 50 dash one CV 50 dash two, notice of deposition, 50 dash three report, 50 dash four, article, blah blah, on and on and on and on invoice. And then six months later when you’re getting ready for trial and that expert now has an updated CV or an updated invoice, then you can just add it to add it to the back of the line. And you don’t have to be 60 numbers away or start with A’S and B 60 A 60 B. So I agree, I think that is a great way to go. And I think you could do it a number of ways every witness can. My friends for life, Perry says he uses 100 and every number in that 100 for a witness.

So 1 0 1, 1 0 2, 1 0 3. So each witness gets a max of 99 exhibits and on and on, and that works I guess up to 10. And then you can get into the thousands, which I think you can do that too. But it’s the same concept of then everyone is sort of trained on this idea that this is witness 100 or this is witness 50. I also think it could be helpful on some of these joint exhibits or some of the initial documents, like you said, medical records, the bills, the investigative reports, things that get through discovery even before we hire experts, that could be one through a hundred if you wanted to go that way. And if you wanted to reuse them in different depositions, the foundational documents. So there are times in cases where you have a medical record, a chart or a graph or something where you want the opinion of the person you’re deposing about how that person interprets.

Maybe it’s image, how that person interprets that image. So I’ll print it out and put a sticker on it and give it to the person being deposed and say, what do you see here? And maybe let’s say they’re going to circle a mass, they circle it and write their initial by it, and I give ’em a color and then the next person I say, and forget the idea, they’re being influenced by the marking that’s already there. I guess you could object to that, but no one really has give them a red pen, what do you see? And have them mark it. And the idea is you have one exhibit with everybody’s marking on it, and by the time you get to experts, I think it would be harder for that expert to say, I don’t see it. Well, the seven people who have been deposed before you saw it, and I think it makes a really good exhibit for trial. So I could see where you would have numbers at the beginning of the case with records and bills. As I said, that may not have to be remarked in further depositions.

Erica Slater:

Can I ask a silly question? But I’m just trying to think about this. For people who may be listening to the podcast who are not plaintiff’s attorneys, which sometimes I forget the

Amy Gunn:

People who don’t do

Erica Slater:

The exact same kind of work we do may listen to the podcast, but they have defense lawyers use letters.

Amy Gunn:

I think that’s a Missouri

Erica Slater:

Thing. That’s a, okay. They don’t do that in Illinois. I think they just had an Illinois case where they did

Amy Gunn:

Maybe. So attacked us at,

Erica Slater:

Tell us what

Amy Gunn:

Your state does. Well, I don’t really recall for Illinois. It’s been a while since I’ve tried a case over there, but in Missouri, I do think it is written down somewhere that plaintiffs use numbers and defendants use letters. But you know what, that could be old school. I could be, that could be outdated. But I think a lot of us who have been practicing for a long time probably still go by that.

Erica Slater:

That’s every trial I’ve ever been in. I’ve seen defendants use the letters including in depositions. And I am wondering how if maybe defense Missouri practitioner is listening to our podcast and thinking, well, that’s a great idea, so I’m not repeating A, B, C-D-E-F-G

Amy Gunn:

Every single time or going all the way to X, x, x, x. I mean you don’t just have 26 exhibits or even double that going to double. I mean I do remember it’s been a good while, but having triple lettered exhibits and it’s a pain. The last couple of cases though, I’ve tried, I don’t remember the defendants using letters. And so I don’t know if it’s a rule or it was just a practice, probably something we could look up but

Erica Slater:

Try to figure out. But I guess this is something, the technique that we’ve been talking about is something that could be implemented by a defense lawyer in Missouri State court about a one and doctor, you’re going to be letter A all the way through, and then when I get to my next witness, you’re going to be letter B dash, whatever all the way through. And that’s a way to keep, again, keep these letters separated so that when it comes to trial, maybe your exhibit list is going to look at a little bit different because I with you, Amy, on sometimes seeing some of these defense exhibit lists, and I’m like, what’s a

Amy Gunn:

Quadruple F doing on here? What is this I’D to mark? F, F, F, F? How many Fs? Whatever. Yeah, that’s not fun. Erica, do you find yourself sometimes in depositions showing exhibits to witnesses and drawing objections?

Liz Lenivy:

Yeah, often. And this week I had that issue happen, and I was thinking of it earlier, Elizabeth, when you were talking about what you encountered in depositions, I was deposing a passenger from the defendant vehicle in a commercial vehicle case. A guy rear-ended or a concrete pickup blew through a stop sign and there was a passenger in the car early in the morning. He says he is kind of snoozing. And so part of the question in the deposition is what did he witness and what did he not? And he wasn’t represented by the defense attorney, so he wasn’t prepped necessarily. And one of the issues is the impact was so big because this person was going 55, blowing straight through this stop sign on a two lane highway at this intersection. I think one of the shocking things that you don’t realize until you’re looking at the pictures or are out at the scene is how far our client’s vehicle was catapulted.

It actually went up on two wheels, then came down and kept going into the ditch. So it was a really severe impact. And the ditch is pretty far away from the center of the intersection where the car landed. And I was wanting the passenger as a witness to circle, like you said on the exhibit where our client’s car was at rest and I got all these objections about speculation. He wasn’t seeing dah, dah. And I was like, that’s fine. All you’re having me do is perfect my record by going back and laying more foundation. And I was like, okay, Mr. Passenger, you said you were snoozing in the car before the accident. Afterwards, you got out of the car, you were awake, you were looking around, you viewed where the vehicle was at, rest, all these things. And after I laid a more proper foundation, which of course there was foundation for it, they backed off and they let him mark on the exhibit.

But I think you draw objections or people perk up a little bit in a deposition when you are having witnesses draw on exhibits, whether it’s identifying where an impact happened or Amy, like you said, having different experts or witnesses make notations about whether they saw something. I also think a great way to do that is to independently give each witness a blank without the writing of the other one. And then you can make them all into transparencies and just overlap them all. You had mentioned being concerned that they’d be influenced by the markings already on that exhibit, but that’s a way to potentially do that too, especially if you had been savvy enough to give them each different colors, then you could layer them over each other. But if you’re doing that, that exhibit now with the markings is a totally different exhibit. So if you mark picture, for example, as exhibit 10, and then it’s marked on that is no longer exhibit 10, it’s 10 dash a or 10 dash one or whatever.

Because now that exhibit has been altered and they have two different functions, obviously. One is an exhibit where a witness has identified something and one of course is the blank exhibit. So I think when you’re using exhibits that are new or having someone mark on something, I think everybody perks up. The other situation that I’ve had where people kind of get up in arms about exhibits and depos is when you’re having a witness fill something out. I’ve seen on several occasions I’ve tried to use this, but it’s never perfectly gone well for me, like an agree, disagree column. If you have, you make a slide or a chart on a piece of paper and it’s intended to be a very visual thing for the jury, and there’s a way to highlight with colors or big red X on no or huge green check mark on yes, depending on what your point is, if you have witnesses, fill those out as you go.

Attorneys can get up in arms about that because creating an exhibit on the fly from their testimony. Now keep in mind I’ve been on both sides of that. I think before I’ve told a story in a podcast about how I was defending a corporate rep, and I wouldn’t let him fill out that type of chart. When the plaintiff’s attorney, I was early in my career and at an insurance defense firm, the plaintiff’s attorney was basically trying to bully me into it and I’m taking a break and refusing, and then I called the partner I’m working for and he can’t do that. Right? Right. So I mean, I think the lesson that especially Elizabeth, like you said, young attorneys who aren’t sure when those issues come up or they’re being challenged for the way they’re doing things, no matter what side you’re on, I think it’s a good rule of thumb, especially while you’re learning to do what you think is right in the moment and figure out whether it was later and don’t let a more experienced attorney make you back off of what you’re doing, but also do your best to get it right.

But in that instance, whether I was wrong or not letting our witness draw on that exhibit, I didn’t want it created. And if I had the power to stop that in that moment, I mean what would happen next? The plaintiff’s attorney would get a court order that the witness had to do it. That’s unlikely for that follow up. So you should stick to your guns and do whatever you think is right in the moment. And a lot of things can be cleaned up later, especially when we are starting to go back and look at these things at trial. Say you’re playing a deposition, which we do a lot in Missouri, we play video depositions where you may hope you would’ve appropriately introduced an exhibit and not have to find other places in your case where you need to lay the foundation and get that exhibit in because you might not have done it properly in the deposition.

Amy Gunn:

The objections that are made in a deposition, I know sometimes we sort of give it the back of the hand, like, okay, okay, you’re talking stop talking. It doesn’t change what I’m doing. But I believe as you point out, Erica, it’s important if the end of the day is to get the exhibit admitted and the objection is form. That’s not much of an objection. I don’t think that’s a proper objection for a document. You need a legal objection and it’s probably foundation. So if the objection is just objection, form, what do you do?

Liz Lenivy:

Well, it depends on what the tone of the deposition is. I’ve always been careful to keep a close ear out for when you just get a form objection. Sometimes an objection is lodged just because the other attorney doesn’t like what’s going on in the deposition. And if you know there’s not scan through your head form, objection is an umbrella term. It refers to a question being too vague or being a compound question, question itself. Yeah, the question itself is wrong in one of a number of different defective ways of which there’s case law, at least in Missouri, that you need to identify which form objection you are making in order for that to be a proper objection. Now, so many attorneys use objection, form as a shorthand to alert the other attorney. It’s going to be one of ’em. But if someone says, objection, form, and I know I just asked two questions in one, I know that I asked a compound question, it is improper.

I want a clear record. I don’t mind correcting that mistake because I probably want the answer to each of those questions. So depending on the tone, it can be a gift to help you perfect your record. Don’t be afraid of capitulating to that objection and going back and saying, let me lay some foundation here. Let me back up. Let me lay some foundation. And then you go to your Meow Meow acronym, and that’s a trigger to start from the top. Make sure you’ve announced how it’s marked, have the witness identify it, authenticate it, and offer it depending on the situation. And you shouldn’t feel like they’re getting the best of you if you go back and correct when you’ve heard an objection, because that can be really helpful for your

Amy Gunn:

Record. Well, and that’s what I was going to say. If you’re talking, if you’re trying to get an exhibit in front of the witness and the other side just doesn’t like the exhibit and they say objection to the form, objection, form. I don’t think that really preserves anything with respect to this exhibit because you need a legal objection to the exhibit. So it should be objection, foundation. And as much as I’m the same way, I hate when people object to my questions, it throws me off. It’s just annoying. But as you point out, this is an opportunity to do a better job on the foundation. So Liz looked like you wanted to say something. No,

Erica Slater:

I was just chuckling to myself thinking about this. Let me go back and lay the foundation and fix it because Elizabeth, I had sort of a similar story. It reminded me of when you were talking about how younger lawyers don’t always get away with things that older lawyers get away with. And in this particular story, I had watched John Simon, a video deposition that he had taken with one of our experts, and something that he had done was take the deposition testimony of one of the defendants that was particularly harmful to their case, very helpful to ours. Basically she was admitting to doing some very dumb things, and that was the basis of the allegations of negligence in the case. Very helpful for an expert to know. And so what he had done was taken that testimony and put it into a PowerPoint instead of basically taking it from the transcript where it’s maybe not as eye-catching and putting it into a PowerPoint where he could list, this is the name of the witness, this is the date that it was taken, and here’s the important testimony.

And it was very visually effective because it just draws your eyes to the testimony and you’re not getting lost in reading, well, maybe that’s on line 11, but what was down at line 25. So it was very effective. And I said, I’m going to do that in my deposition. Same situation. The witness had given very helpful testimony that our expert had relied heavily upon in giving his opinions. And John didn’t draw any objections when he did this PowerPoint testimony thing. But when I did it, I drew some objections and in the moment, all I could think of to say was, but I saw John, Simon do it. And I’ll say that was an effective response. They let it go,

But I wanted it in that format instead of just taking the page from the deposition because I wanted the name of the person who was saying it, I wanted the jury to be reminded, this is the individual that said it, this is the date that they said it, and here’s the testimony, especially because in this particular case, there were two very important fact witnesses, and it was important not only what they were testifying to, but the dates that they gave their testimony. So it was important that the timing of it, and I thought that if I just throw up the deposition testimony itself, a screenshot from, I don’t think that’s going to, I don’t know if I can do any of this, but two, I just don’t think it’s as visually effective with the jury when I’m doing a video depo. So I did it the way John did it, and it worked out fine. It all came in, there were no objections at trial. It was fine. And still in my mind, I’m like, I don’t know if I did that correctly.

Amy Gunn:

You are describing a demonstrative exhibit. So I think that’s an important distinction to make now, because the exhibits that we’re talking about under the MIAO is to be admitted into evidence, which means it can go back to the jury room, it can be seen and touched and read again by the jury in conjunction with what they’ve heard from the testimony. And this is sort of a hack, I think if you get to the point where you’re having some foundation problems and the judge looks like he or she’s not going to actually admit it, then just say it’s just for demonstrative purposes. It’s just for demonstrative purposes. And that’s sort of like the trigger for everybody to be like, oh, okay. And that way the jury gets to see it. It is not technically admitted into evidence and doesn’t go back to the jury room or I guess become technically part of the record, but they get to see it.

And that’s what you wanted the jury. It was not so much that what was on the paper per se, is you wanted them to have that information in comparison to what the expert was saying. And so for that purpose would’ve just said, I’m not intending to admit this, it’s just for demonstrative purposes only. And I think everybody would’ve just sat down. And you see that a lot. I mean, I think to me, if I run into trouble with an exhibit and maybe it’s something I created, it’s not a business record or whatever, I just say demonstrative, and it just like it sort of works.

Erica Slater:

All your problems float away.

Amy Gunn:

It’s magical. People sit down, judge a smile. I mean, it’s just the

Erica Slater:

Jury nods their heads.

Amy Gunn:

Yeah, I got it. So that is another important thing to point out. The other one is anything is illustrative of your opinion. Does this help your opinion, Perry, my friends for life, Perry was talking about does this hamburger help you illustrate your opinions? And if the expert says yes, then the hamburger gets seen. I mean, it’s one of these things, there are hacks. Just remember that if you need that piece of evidence to make your case or to get past a directed verdict, it ain’t going to help. But if it’s truly just to emphasize or to make it easier for a jury to see your point of view, then I think that’s the answer. Okay. So there’s that.

Kind of, to wrap it up, I think we’ve tried to go over some tips and tricks to be aware of when you’re trying to get exhibits in front of deposition witnesses. And I think that’s sort of bled naturally into how to deal with exhibits. That’s trial. And hopefully if you’re following the rules, so to speak in a deposition, that will in and of itself make it easier in terms of how you mark things, whether they’re authenticated in the deposition. And then all you have to do is when you’re in trial, technically ask for things to be admitted. I don’t think it’s normal to ask in a deposition to ask, no one, your Honor, I’d like for this to be admitted. That’s not necessary. You just do it when you’re in trial. And as long as you’ve done the job, then it’s going to come in. Even if the only witness who sees that exhibit is on video, it’s still going to come in if you’ve laid the foundation and done it right. So we hope this has been helpful. Thank you for listening to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. We drop episodes every other Wednesday and we’ll see you next time.

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