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!