Product Description

Cross-examination is the single most important element of a trial well-conducted. When you learn to do it right, Larry Pozner says, you accomplish four critical goals: (1) you amp up the witness’s voice to relate each fact of your story to the jury; (2) you break that story down into clear, veridical “chapters”—factual building blocks that trigger and channel jury cognitions; (3) you construct logical, semantic links between your opening and closing—links necessary for the jury to resonate with your theory of the case; and (4) you use witness emotion—like anxiety—to reconstruct fading memories, compel honesty, eliminate distortions, close down paths to irrational outcomes, and empower your jury to reach a clear decision.

Pozner shares signature techniques well-grounded in current thinking about the neuroscience of decision, memory, and emotion. He trains you on three tactical rules of cross-examination that have made his bestselling book, Cross-Examination: Science and Techniques (3rd ed., LexisNexis), a wildly popular guide for courtroom lawyers. He explains how leading questions can moderate witness behavior on the stand; how simple sentence construction, fact-ordering, and the paintbrush of mental imagery can make a witness malleable; and how simple, logic-based facts can build memorable narrative, channel judge and jury cognition, and drive the engine of inference to your advantage.

Pozner calls his technique “The Chapter Method® of Cross-Examination.” Learn it just once, and you can use it with spectacular results for the rest of your career. This entertaining training offers you sample “chapters” and powerful sample scripts that you can tailor to your own facts. Let Pozner teach you how to derail your opponent and impeach the key witness—even the most evasive, memory-challenged or talkative one—in just a matter of minutes.

Agenda & Materials

• 9:30am - 10:00am

  The Science Behind Winning Through Cross-Examinations

  • Behavioral economics: how people take shortcuts to decisions • Cognitive neuroscience: how the brain processes information and can tire • Cognitive psychology: how the brain prefers to acquire information

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 10:00am - 10:45am

  The Chapter Method of Cross-Examination

  • Chapters: the easiest shortcut to winning crosses • The science of chunking information • The mental economics of Chapter Method cross

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 10:45am - 11:00am

  Break
• 11:00am - 11:30am

  Chapter Bundles

  • Techniques for telling big stories through linked smaller stories • Techniques to cause the opponent’s witness to tell our stories. • Examples of the chapter bundle

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 11:30am - 12:00pm

  Sequences of Cross-Examination

  • Using the order of chapters to shape judge or juror beliefs • Considerations for how to begin and end a cross • Techniques for minimizing risk

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 12:00pm - 1:00pm

  Lunch
• 1:00pm - 2:00pm

  Constructive Cross-Examination

  • Methods and advantages of cross-centered preparation • How constructive cross-examination wins cases • The quickest way to chart the multiple stories • Shortcuts when time runs out

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 2:00pm - 2:45pm

  Scripting Our Pages of Cross-Examination

  • The architecture of a page of cross • Page format samples • Preparing for instant impeachments

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 2:45pm - 3:00pm

  Break
• 3:00pm - 3:45pm

  Questioning Techniques That Control the Witness

  • Delivering questions that deprive the witness of time to deceive • Forming questions that shrink the field of evasion • Group facts to use opponent’s witnesses to tell our stories.

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  
• 3:45pm - 4:30pm

  Controlling the Evasive Witness

  • 20 techniques for compelling answers • Methods to highlight the facts that the witness wants to avoid. • Calling out the willfully evasive witness.

  Larry S. Pozner, Esq., L S Pozner, PLLC , Denver
  

Please Note

MCLE webcasts are delivered completely online, underscoring their convenience and appeal. There are no published print materials. All written materials are available electronically only. They are posted 24 hours prior to the program and can be accessed, downloaded, or printed from your computer.

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