Preventing Amygdala Hi-Jack at Deposition in the Reptilian Era
Presented By: DRI and Courtoom Sciences, Inc
It is exceptionally rare that a defense witness “wins” the case through his or her deposition testimony. Indeed, it is far more likely that the testimony of the defense witness will “lose” the case during the deposition. Mock jury data clearly illustrates that a witness who consistently “pivots” or preemptively tries to “beat the questioner to the punch” to score points for the defense at deposition is often described as “dodging” and “sidestepping” questions. The witness brain is inherently wired to defend itself in the face of an adversarial examination and unfavorable case facts. That defensive survival response, resulting from subcortical amygdala activation (Amygdala “Hi-Jack”), comes in the form of forced explanations designed either to defeat the questioner (fight), reframe the issue or “put lipstick on a pig” (flight), or pivot to a different issue (evade). A witness’s ability to control emotion depends on having the capacity to modulate negative emotional responses through cognitive-emotional strategies, which will be covered in this program. Additionally, this program will also include the very latest updates on the plaintiff Reptile Revolution efforts across the country, and the various defense methods being used to defeat it at every phase of litigation.
Who Should Attend:
What Will You Learn?:
Bill Kanasky, Jr. is the Vice President of Litigation Psychology at Courtroom Sciences, Inc., a full-service, national litigation consulting firm. Dr. Kanasky is recognized as a national expert, author and speaker in the areas of advanced witness training and jury psychology and is the nation’s leading authority on recognizing, derailing, and defeating the plaintiff Reptile strategy.
Paul D. Motz is a trial lawyer with over a decade of experience defending individuals and corporations in catastrophic loss and professional negligence claims in the worst defense jurisdictions in the nation. Paul’s firm is regularly retained to take over as lead trial counsel in the days before trial in jurisdictions all over the country providing him unique first-hand experience with a wide variety of localized plaintiff tactics and jurisdictional nuances.
J. Thaddeus Eckenrode is the founder of Eckenrode-Maupin, Attorneys-at-Law, a St. Louis based insurance defense firm. He is a litigator with almost 30 years of experience, and has taken more than 70 complex trials to verdict, winning nearly 90% of those cases.