Description

Imagine a cross-examination technique that can consistently destroy a witness’s credibility, elicit surprising answers, and create the powerful moments that win hard cases. Imagine a strategy that allows you to easily control hostile witnesses and get exactly what you want from them—support for the crucial points of your case.

Dynamic Cross-Examination rejects the old adage that you must never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. Instead, this book reveals the importance of remaining flexible and being unafraid to take risks. Author James H. McComas, an attorney well known for winning seemingly impossible cases, explains that taking a more creative approach to advocacy opens the door to achieving much greater success.

By mixing leading and nonleading questions, closely monitoring a witness’s behavior, maintaining a fluid and energetic pace, and adapting your line of questioning to take advantage of unexpected responses, you can create and seize opportunities to drive your points home during cross-examination. That is why Rick Friedman, in his foreword to this book, affirms that he has used McComas’s method in every cross-examination he has conducted over the past twenty years.

In this straightforward book, McComas leads you through nine case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of his Dynamic Cross-Examination technique in civil and criminal cases. Insightful commentary accompanies each transcript, offering you concrete examples of how to elicit opportunities to win from a witness, discredit eyewitness and expert testimony, effectively use in-court demonstrations, handle objections, and deliver killer comebacks.

As McComas shows, the key to winning a tough trial is using cross-examination to promote your own case, while undermining your opponent. Dynamic Cross-Examination gives you the confidence you need to think on your feet and get exactly what you want from witnesses.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Rick Friedman
Foreword by W. Gary Kohlman
Introduction

Part I: Comparing Methods Calls for a New, Dynamic Approach

1. What Is the Purpose of Cross-Examination?
2. Cross-Examination: Art or Science?
3. The Modern Yes-No Method of Cross-Examination
4. The Method Matters a Lot
5. The Dynamic Method of Cross-Examination
6. How Do You Do Dynamic Cross-Examination?

Part II: Case Example: State v. Peter Piper

7. Introduction State v. Peter Piper
8. Preparing for Dynamic Cross-Examination of Quarrel Kwiktrigger
9. Dynamic Cross-Examination of Quarrel Kwiktrigger
10. Preparing for Dynamic Cross-Examinatino of Sucha Snitch
11. Dynamic Cross-Examination of Sucha Snitch

Part III: Dynamic Cross-Examination for Plaintiff’s Lawyers in Jury-Trial Cases

12. Comparison of Cross-Examination in Plaintiff’s and Criminal Practice
13. Introduction to Jones v. Bigshot
14. Dynamic Cross-Examination of Bertha Bigshot, MD
15. Preparation for Ugit Nottabuk, PhD, Neuropsychologist
16. Dynamic Cross-Examination of Ugit Nottabuk, PhD

Part IV: Final Issues Concerning Cross-Examination

17. Analytical Charts and Visual Aids
18. Handling Special Cross-Examination Problems
19. Maxims for Attorneys for the Underdog

Conclusion
Appendices

Reviews

1. I feel safe in saying you hold in your hands a book that will revolutionize how generations of trial lawyers think about cross-examination.
   —Rick Friedman, author of Rules of the Road

2. Dynamic Cross-Examination is a milestone analytical advancement in trial advocacy.
   —Hank Asbill, partner, Jones Day, fellow and past president of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s top winning litigators

3. Jim McComas takes cross-examination to another level in Dynamic Cross-Examination. Beautifully written by one of the best trial lawyers in the country, this book is a must-read for all serious trial lawyers and a great text and sourcebook for anyone who teaches trial advocacy.
   —Angela J. Davis, professor of law at American University, former director of The Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C.

4. Jim McComas is that rare lawyer who blends a towering intellect with unsurpassed practical experience. The result is an important and original book that will open your eyes and explain how successful cross-examination can be achieved. Mr. McComas’s insight, logic, and infectious passion will delight, inform, and challenge those who want to succeed in the well of the court. This book is a gem!
   Bob Muse, senior partner at Stein, Mitchell & Muse, adjunct professor of law at Georgetown and Harvard Law Schools

5. McComas debunks longstanding myths and draws on his extensive trial experience to create a provocative new framework for thinking about how to maintain leverage in cross-examination. What he does is offer the trial lawyer a new opportunity to win in the courtroom. It’s a must-read for trial lawyers and educators.
   —Kim Taylor-Thompson, professor of law at the New York University School of Law, former director of The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia

6. Jim McComas, one of the finest lawyers in the country, shares his valuable insights and methods with those of us who represent the underdog, and helps us all to be better advocates.
   —Andrea D. Lyon, associate dean for Clinical Programs and director of the Center for Justice in Capital Cases at DePaul University College of Law

7. Based on his decades of experience and unparalleled wisdom, Jim McComas has created an innovative and powerful method for cross-examination. It will pull even the most experienced expert witnesses from the relatively safe harbor of the typical yes-or-no cross-examination into perilously unchartered waters, where any biases, flawed assumptions, and faulty reasoning are most likely to be exposed.
   —Gregg O. McCrary, former supervisory special agent for the FBI’s Behavior Science Unit

8. What Jim has coined in ‘Dynamic Cross-Examination’ is his spot-on identification of a method for successful interaction with your opponent’s witness. A must-read for trial lawyers.
   —Michele Roberts, Business Trial Lawyer of the Year, 2011 Chambers USA Awards of Excellence; listed in Washingtonian Magazine‘s 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington

9. In my ten years of trying mostly murder cases with the author, I have seen this method create powerful and case-winning dynamics in the courtroom. It will change the way you practice. It is the next generation of winning trial technique.
   Cynthia Strout, Alaskan Champion of Liberty Award

10. James McComas, skilled trial lawyer and master of cross-examination that he is, has ‘nailed it’ in Dynamic Cross-Examination.
    —Phillip Weidner, BS, MIT’s Sloan School of Business and JD, Harvard Law School