Chapter 12
IN THIS CHAPTER
Conducting the initial client interview
Interviewing witnesses
Preparing clients and witnesses for giving testimony
You’ll find that you often get the most valuable information for a case when you interview clients and witnesses. Paralegals often have an advantage over their supervising attorneys when it comes to conducting interviews. Clients may be less intimidated by paralegals and find them to be more sensitive and more approachable than attorneys. So, you may be able to gain more information from a client or witness in an interview than an attorney can.
The majority of the interviews you hold serve one of two purposes: to gain information about a case from a client or witness or to prepare the client or witness to give testimony. This chapter shows you how to set up an interview with a client or witness, gives you ideas for the types of questions you ask, and provides tips on how to prepare clients and witnesses for testifying at trial.
The first and, perhaps, most important interview for any case is the initial client interview. The primary goal of the initial client interview is to gather enough information to determine whether the client has a valid case and to develop a proper investigation of the case if it turns out to be valid. Your supervising attorney may trust you to perform this important task. At the very least, you may be present during the interview to take notes and provide support to the client and your supervising attorney.
Successful client interviews require proper preparation. The initial interview provides the client with the first, and probably most lasting, impression of the law firm, so you must present yourself as a competent and caring professional. To make for a comfortable client and an enlightening interview, you, as the interview director, set the stage, control the discussion, and provide a natural ending point.
You need to keep a couple things in mind when you set the stage for a client interview. The room you choose and the way you position those involved in the interview within that room can affect the success of the interview.
The room where you hold the interview should be comfortable and free of clutter with a room décor that doesn’t detract from the matter at hand. A good choice would be a conference room, a general meeting room, or the office of an attorney or paralegal.
After you settle on a location for the interview, you need to consider the arrangement of the people in the room. Usually, interviews are set up in one of three basic seating arrangements:
After a while, you’ll instinctively know the best location and seating arrangement for interviewing clients. Then, you’ll be able to focus on preparing for the content of the interview rather than its setting.
Before you interview anyone, you need to have a plan. Know what you want to accomplish from the meeting and put it in writing so you have something to refer to as you move through the interview.
Many clients love to tell you their life stories, but time is a valuable resource in a law office. You’ll be pressed for time just like everyone else on staff, so you’ll generally have a specific amount of time allotted for a client interview. Not only does the checklist help you to keep the client focused on the task at hand, but it also gives you a polite way to bring an interview to a close. Review your checklist with the client at the onset of the interview so she knows what you plan to cover during the interview. The client knows the interview is over when you’ve worked through all the questions.
Organize your checklists so that the flow of information has some continuity. Use any information you may have about the case before you see the client to formulate your questions and organize the interview. Ask background questions first to establish a foundation. Then use the logical sequence of events as a guide for ordering the questions you ask about the event or incident in question. For example, in divorce, estate, and other legal matters that concern finances, you gather information on a client’s assets and debts. It’s customary to ask about assets first and then use the asset information as a guide for gathering the information on debts.
Secure background information.
Ask questions about the client’s biographical data and other information about the client that’s pertinent to the case. You can find checklists of background questions for all kinds of cases in the American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts (POF). (You can find out more about this helpful resource in Chapter 11.) For example, if a client is seeking assistance with a drunk driving charge, you’d ask about the client’s driving record to get insight into his driving background.
Find out what happened immediately before the event.
In the pre-event stage of questioning, ask the client to thoroughly explain the circumstances leading up to the incident in question.
Find out what happened during the actual incident.
The initial interview focuses on the event stage, which may be the most emotional part of the interview for the client. Be prepared to handle the client’s anger, sadness, or fear as he recalls the details of the event. Pay close attention; sometimes seemingly insignificant details can have a crucial bearing on the success of a case.
Discovering what occurred after the event.
Have the client finish the accounting with information about what happened immediately after the event and what relevant matters have occurred up to the time of the interview. This information helps you determine the client’s damages and the extent of his pain and suffering.
Here’s a sample scenario to help you work through the initial client interview process. Suppose your supervising attorney asks you to interview a prospective client by handing you a memo like the one in Figure 12-2.
The memo includes a police report. Sometimes the law office will have preliminary information you can ponder before you meet the client. Figure 12-3 shows you the narrative report referred to in the memo.
Based on the information provided to you and using the four stages of an event as a guideline, you may come up with a checklist of questions like the following to ask Mr. Careless in the initial interview. Note: You ask follow-up questions based on the answers you get for the original questions.
The success of any interview depends upon the client’s ability to provide the necessary information. One means of persuading the client to talk is to have him explain the stages in story fashion. If possible, encourage the client to recount the events in chronological order and avoid interrupting the client during the account. At the end of the client’s story, summarize the chain of events and repeat it to the client. This gives the client the chance to correct any of your misperceptions and allows the client to recall additional details to fill in the original account.
Before you end the initial interview, ask whether the client has any additional questions about the case. The odds are pretty good that the client won’t remember every single detail about the incident or her actions during the first interview, so encourage her to contact you or your supervising attorney if she remembers something else or has additional questions. Before the client leaves the initial interview, be sure to tell her to refrain from discussing the case with anyone other than members of the law firm.
You conduct witness interviews in much the same way you do client interviews. The major difference between the two is that you go into the witness interview with a more definite goal for the interview.
As in the initial client interview (see the previous sections), you’ll have a checklist of questions prepared in advance. To give you an idea of the kinds of questions you may ask a witness to an accident, we return to the Cary Careless incident (see “Creating and following an interview checklist,” earlier in this chapter). Imagine your supervising attorney hands you the memo in Figure 12-4.
To complete the assignment, you first find out whether Mr. Nosy has an attorney to represent him in the Careless matter. Then you choose a location for the interview. You may call the retirement center where he lives to find out if they have a quiet, comfortable room where you could talk to Mr. Nosy, especially if he doesn’t live alone. After you’ve established the site and scheduled an interview with the witness, you prepare a set of questions like the ones in Figure 12-5.
Now that you’ve interviewed your office’s client and the prospective witnesses, you know exactly what they’re going to say during questioning if they’re deposed or in court if the case goes to trial, right? Wrong! One of the best ways to sink your client’s case is to let your client or any of your witnesses get on the stand without training them for questioning.
To prepare clients and witnesses for testimony during a deposition or trial, let them know the purpose of the questioning. Give them a thorough description of the questioning process and provide them with insight into the opposition’s perspective and how the opposition may use the answers they give to make its case. Here are several time-tested pointers to give to a client or witness, especially if she’s giving testimony to a jury:
Tell the truth. Telling a lie may lose the case. In a lawsuit, as in all other matters, honesty is the best policy. If you tell the truth, nobody can cross you up. And you could face criminal perjury charges for intentionally lying under oath.
Never tell a client or prospective witness to say anything under oath that’s untrue. Not only is it against professional ethics to encourage a witness to lie, but you could also be prosecuted for perjury or witness tampering.
In addition to going through this list with clients and witnesses, you’ll probably prepare them for specific questions they can expect to answer.