Ethics of Working with Experts and Witnesses
Total Credits: 1 including 1 Ethics
- Average Rating:
- Not yet rated
- Categories:
- Ethics
- Faculty:
- Thomas E. Spahn | Elizabeth Treubert Simon
- Original Program Date:
- Sep 27, 2024
- License:
- Never Expires.
Description
Preparing witnesses – whether fact witnesses or experts – for deposition or trial or conferring with them during breaks in testimony fraught with ethical issues. Expert witnesses are paid for their time, not their testimony. Though they may be hired to support a client’s view of the facts, there are limits to how experts can be coached. There are also real limits to how attorneys can prompt fact witnesses, for instance to “not remember” unfavorable facts. There are also significant ethical issues involving how to handle inadvertently produced privileged documents and when testimony goes in an unexpected adverse direction. This program will provide you with a practical guide to the ethical issues and traps of working with witnesses.
Schedule:
- Paying witnesses for their time versus their testimony
- Prompting a witness to “not remember” unfavorable testimony
- Conferring with witnesses during deposition breaks and the limits of what you advise
- Dishonest witnesses – what are your obligations to the court and your client?
- How to handle the inadvertent production of privileged documents
- Drafting witness affidavits without interviewing the witness
Handouts
| Handout 1 (647.9 KB) | 142 Pages | Available after Purchase |
| Handout 2 (1.1 MB) | 285 Pages | Available after Purchase |
Faculty
Thomas E. Spahn Related Seminars and Products
McGuireWoods, LLP
Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a substantial practice advising clients on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. For more than 30 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written “The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner’s Guide,” a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation. Mr. Spahn has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee.
Elizabeth Treubert Simon Related Seminars and Products
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Elizabeth Treubert Simon is an ethics attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she advises on a wide range of ethics and compliance-related matters to support Akin Gump’s offices worldwide. Previously, her practice focused on business and commercial litigation and providing counsel to clients regarding professional ethics and attorney disciplinary procedures. She is a member of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Discipline and the District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct Rules Review Committee. She is the immediate past chair of the District of Columbia Legal Ethics Committee. She writes and speaks extensively on attorney ethics issues.
