It's All in the Delivery

Are you like me in sometimes feeling unsure about how to say something assertively but not offensively?  Have you ever gone through a confrontation that was less than satisfactory and later had an "aha" moment about what you should have said at the time?

If either of these scenarios apply, I hope you can benefit from the suggestions here; also, I hope you contribute your own ideas.  I would love to get a collection going of great one-liners and snappy comebacks that get proven results.

Here are my contributions:

For those times when your witness or attorney is a speed demon and just will not slow down.  I had a technical expert witness today who fit this description.  He was literally speaking so fast, some of his words were coming out only half-formed.  I clocked him spewing out his unfamiliar terms at between 260 and 315 wpm ... when I was even able to check my clock. 

It was a videotaped job, so I waited till the break, and I asked him, "If it's at all possible, please slow down so I can get it all for the record."  He nodded and acknowledged that he's been told that a million times.  But did he slow down?  No. 

So I started interrupting him on the record.  "Excuse me.  I lost you starting from '1,4-dioxane,'" or whatever unfamiliar technical term it was.  He said, "Am I going too fast again?" and he repeated what he'd said.  But did he slow down?  No.  This kept happening, and I kept interrupting. 

By the time we broke for lunch, I was completely wrung out and slightly desperate about the upcoming afternoon session.  I really needed to figure something out to get him to slow down.

My husband has been in sales, and from that experience he's taught me the value of using people's names.  It's probably obvious to some, but I'm sure others are like me in being perhaps late to learn this:  Making a point to use new people's names, especially first names, focuses their attention on you.  Well, we also know humor is a universal bonding agent, or can be, right?  So I decided to come up with something personalized and humorous to say to the witness when he returned from lunch, in hopes it would somehow make a difference going forward.

I made sure I had his attention, and then I said, "Mr. Smith, you didn't drink any coffee with lunch, did you?" Well, my goodness!  Not only did everyone have a little laugh, but I think the witness really started to feel a rapport with me.  He proceeded to chat with me a bit about being a teacher and hearing complaints from students who couldn't keep up with their notes of his lectures. I chatted back a bit, and then he asked me about court reporting.  In other words, he became more aware of me and -- here's the key thing -- interested in my welfare, so to speak.

Now that we had become sort of buddies, he had a stake in helping so that my job wasn't as hard.  Try this and see whether it works for you!  I do think it worked for me.  He kept catching himself and saying, "I'm sorry.  I'm going too fast again."  Or he'd say, "Just wave at me if I'm going too fast."
And did he slow down?  Yes! 


For those times when an attorney asks what you think of a witness and you'd rather not answer.  This is always a sticky one for me.  I want to not answer, but I don't want to offend a client.  Well, I just heard a great response -- actually two! -- by a videographer I worked with recently on a difficult all-day job.

The attorney asked after the job, "What did you think of the witness?" The videographer answered offhandedly, "Well, I think everyone's crazy," and kept breaking down his equipment.  The attorney persisted, "I like to get an idea of what real people think."  The videographer replied, "Oh, but I'm not a real person."

It was obvious the videographer didn't want to answer, but his funny way of handling it diffused any offense the attorney might have taken at not getting a direct answer.  The attorney laughed it off and dropped it.  Smart videographer!

They Really DON'T Know What We Do, Do They?

So I'm sitting there writing away at a realtime job. It's a technical case, with lots of new-to-me terms and acronyms. The witness has a slight accent in addition to being very soft-spoken. One of the attorneys I'm hooked up to appears to be reading on her screen every single word I'm writing, versus just referring to the screen once in a while. Another attorney seems to be auditioning for the job of auctioneer, he is so fast. In other words, my task is to get down cleanly each and every word then and there, and that is requiring very intense concentration. Did I mention the job is being videotaped? So there's that added pressure of making sure the transcript matches up with the video as practicably as possible. 

I'm focused so intently that I sometimes find myself holding my breath. Each time that occurs, I have to force several deep, slow breaths to get back to a comfortable rhythm. Of course, just as I've reached that rhythm, someone coughs during an answer, covering up a crucial word, and I'm jolted from my concentration to have to interrupt to ask for a repeat. Then, naturally, the loud air conditioning kicks in. At that point, I'm just thankful the two guys attending via telephone are not saying much, since they sound exactly the same and each time they do speak I have to scramble to get down what they're saying while at the same time trying to identify who's speaking.

It's at this moment that I catch sight of the icon on my laptop that lets me know I've got mail. 

Let me take a step back here to explain that I am online even during jobs. Like many reporters, I carry a mobile broadband card. I do that so that at breaks I can send files as needed, respond timely to job offers and inquiries, and so forth. It's just part of my setup now to automatically plug in the broadband card right after opening up my laptop. My email program is set to check for mail every three minutes.

Now back to my realtime job. I happen to catch sight of the "you've got mail" notification. Well, I'm A LITTLE BUSY at the time, so, of course, I keep concentrating and writing to get down what's being said, versus CHECKING MY MAIL! 

After about 20 minutes, the phone in the conference room starts ringing. Yes, this is the phone by which two of the attorneys are attending. So one of the attorneys in the room calls for a break to answer the phone, and we go off the record.

Come to find out, the two attorneys attending by phone had somehow become disconnected. Do you think they might have first thought to call the conference room we were in? Why, no. Instead they called the court reporting agency, which then emailed me. That's right, folks. Checking my email at this break, I see two messages from the agency with urgent requests for me to check the phone connection. I guess they thought I could read mail in all my spare time between words! Only after their emails to me went unanswered did they think to call the conference room. 

What on earth do they think we're doing there?!