http://www.doereport.com/article_crossexamining.php
DURING THE EXAMINATION:
Send a court reporter who:
Never leaves your client alone, no matter how long the exam takes (remember, some can last as long as 8 hours and the reporter needs to know this in advance).
Provides the transcript in digital format. This makes it easier to share with other attorneys and is excellent for creating questions for cross examination because word searching capabilities in a digital document speed up the process.
Never releases a copy of the transcript to the defense attorney.
Remembers that YOU hired the reporter, and the reporter answers to you. Some physicians have tried to throw my reporters out of the evaluation. They stay. Period.
Can't afford a court reporter? Send a tape recorder with your client(s) and make sure your client knows when to turn the tape over by loaning them a watch with an alarm preset to go off at the end of the tape.
DURING THE DEPOSITION
Bring a laptop with an air card. When the doctor fails to bring the articles he relied upon, claiming they exist, turn the computer around and tell him he is more than welcome to look them up on the internet. This works great in a video depo.
Bring a second laptop on which is loaded all prior depositions so prior testimony can be accessed with a word search function on your computer. This is much faster than tabbing hard copies.
The doctor claims to review the medical records. You are skeptical. Bring a plastic bag. At the conclusion of the deposition, seal the records in the plastic bag and advise the doctor you are giving them to the court reporter until your fingerprint expert can pick them up in the morning. Sit back and watch the fireworks.
The doctor claims he didn't recently alter the raw data and you know she/he did. Get the plastic bag out. Seal the document and advise opposing attorney you are having the ink dated at the lab of your choice. Some labs can tell you if ink is 2 years to 6 months old.
Point out the selective reporting that goes on in virtually every CME. High scales, such as scale 8 on the MMPI2 can indicate the presence of a head injury. Never have I ever had a defense doctor admit to this in a report.
Ask them if the plaintiff did well on the mental status exam. Most doctors administer the Folstein Mental Status Exam which is actually a screening device for Alzheimer's patients. However, most doctors don't score the test, fail to ask all the questions, and, more importantly, lie about the results. Ask the doctor if the patient answered the questions correctly. When the doctor says yes, present the doctor with the transcript that reflects many of the questions were answered incorrectly. Then file your Motion to Strike based on fraud.
The doctor testifies that he does 1/3 plaintiff work. Yeah, right. He/she then hands you a list of cases in which he has testified for the last several years but they do not identify if they are plaintiff or defense referral. Point out that he is hiding that information and it would only take a second or two to note on each case who referred it but in leaving that information out, you cannot address bias. Then ask the doctor to identify on the list each plaintiff referral. In every case in which I required the doctor to do this, he was only able to identify one or two percent of his referrals as plaintiff.