3 Ways to Take the Stress Out of Witness Interviews

Witness interviews can be an incredibly stressful process.

That's not just for the person who's being interviewed, but also for the interviewer.

In this piece, we're going to discuss 3 ways that you can help take the stress out of a witness interview.

I spent 30 years conducting witness interviews, and now I work with law firms and businesses to help them level up their witness interviews, whether it's for litigation purposes or internal investigations.

I've got a great workshop coming up that will help you to level up your witness interviews with a stress-free process that maximizes results. You can learn more or register for the workshop here. 

Witness interviews are really stressful because a witness feels like they're being judged, and no one likes to feel like they're being judged.

So when you conduct a witness interview, your goal is to focus not on judging, but on collecting and developing information, because information is a tool that decision makers can use in order to make appropriate decisions.

And that's true whether you're preparing a case for litigation, or if you're investigating an allegation of an internal wrongdoing at a workplace.

So here are the 3 ways that you can reduce stress during the witness interview.

And doing these three steps will help you conduct a better witness interview. It will help you to maximize your results, and it will help the witness feel more comfortable.

And the more comfortable the witness is, the more information you get.

Number one is to build rapport.

This is a part of the witness interviews that should never be ignored, forgotten, or left out.

And that's because building rapport is how you humanize each other, not just humanizing the witness to you, but you to the witness.

So you want to focus on building rapport, and you do that before you start the Q & A section of the interview.

How do you build rapport?

That's pretty straightforward. It’s really about connecting.

So perhaps you just chat a bit about, your community, about sports, about family, about any of those types of things, but the goal is to talk about something other than what you are investigating.

And you don't want to make that seem forced, you want that to be casual.

And a really, really important component of that when you build rapport is making eye contact.

You want to treat this person with respect.

And that means making eye contact.

The 2nd thing is empathy.

Nothing will help a witness feel calmer, more appreciated, and more respected than having empathy for the position that the witness is in.

Nobody wants to be a witness, whether it's a civil or criminal litigation or an internal investigation.

Empathizing with the position they're in, and understanding that it puts them in a difficult position, really helps you to connect with them.

That's critical to your effectiveness.

Now, how do you show empathy?

One, you actually say it's good to meet you, but sorry that we're meeting in this situation.

I understand this is a really difficult process, and I want to try to help make this as painless as possible for you.

The 2nd way that you create empathy is to respect how they're doing and to play off of that.

If they're being fearful, do what you can to calm the fears.

You know, you can't promise anything, but you can certainly do things that will help to calm their fears.

And the best way to come up with an approach to be empathetic to the witness is to literally put yourself into their shoes and think about how it feels from their position.

Once you're able to do that, you will be far more empathetic and you're going to find that's a great tool for really maximizing the results of your witness interview, for helping you get solid information.

And the 3rd tool in taking the stress out of the witness interview process is to listen.

One of the things that we think about often when we do witness interviews is that we want to talk.

We want to ask questions, we want to guide the witness, we want to control the witness, however you want to talk about it.

But that's absolutely the wrong approach to conducting an effective witness interview.

What you really want to do is listen.

Let witnesses tell their story, don't interrupt. If you need to gently guide them.That's great, but let the witness talk.

You want to show that you're listening by using what we call reflective listening. After the witness tells you something, you say, "so let me make sure I understand what you're saying."

Or, "If I understand you correctly, you are saying this."

That really shows the witness that you're listening, and that makes the witness feel good.

Yes, the witness is in a difficult place.

As I said, nobody wants to be interviewed.

You are showing that you are actually hearing them by saying, let me make sure I get this correct.

But then you're repeating it back to them, which is actually showing that you're listening.

By listening, you do a couple of things.

The witness will fill that space.

The more you listen, the more information the witness will provide to you.

Now, we may want to step in occasionally to guide the witness and that's okay.

I I like to think of a witness interview as a funnel process where we start out wider and then narrow down to specifics as you get into the interview.

But let them run a narrative uninterrupted.

Let them tell you what was happening in their own words.

You know, use that process.

Let them calm themselves.

One of the great things about the more the witness talks and the more you listen.

The more the witness will actually calm himself, and the more that will take the stress out of the process for the witnesses.

If you found this helpful, I've got a great workshop coming up that will help you to level up your witness interviews with a stress-free process that maximizes results. You can learn more or register for the workshop here.