My 1st Witness Interview

It was a February evening, 36 years ago, when at about 7:00 pm I picked up my home telephone (It was before cell phones) and dialed the telephone number listed for a witness in an auto accident report. 

I had just started working, a week before, for an investigator that specialized in civil plaintiff investigations. In that first week, I’d done a bit of public records research, and scene documentation, and served a witness subpoena.

I had also “second chaired” a witness interview or two where I listened and took handwritten notes.

The witness I was calling was the first witness I’d be interviewing all on my own. 

Years before, right after graduating high school, I spent two weeks at my father’s law firm, conducting telephone interviews with nazi labor camp survivors for a possible reparations case. Those interviews were very preliminary and just to determine if they could be plaintiffs if a lawsuit was ever brought forward.

I was nervous, but also excited, as the phone rang on the other end. Once answered, I introduced myself and asked if the witness was available. He was. I was already talking with him. 

I stumbled through explaining the reason for calling him. 

To my amazement. He agreed to be interviewed. Fortunately, he remembered the accident, and that the police officer at the scene had taken down his name and number.

The witness spoke really quickly. Faster than I could take notes. He also jumped to the last part of the interview first describing going up to the driver of one of the cars (our client) to see if she was ok.

The witness jumped all over the place. And I let him. 

But eventually, he got to the gist of the interview. How the accident happened.

As the witness described what he saw, I realized I’d have to meet with him in person to get a handwritten signed statement. It was the practice of the investigator I worked for to get handwritten signed statements from favorable witnesses in civil cases.

I was afraid to “lose” the witness so, I asked the witness if we could meet that evening, and told him I’d be happy to meet him wherever it was convenient. He asked what part of town (Los Angeles) that I lived in, and when I told him, he said your house..

I was unprepared for his response. But didn’t know any better so I said yes to this total stranger coming to my house at night.

Which he did.

Fortunately, he was a decent guy. 

Using an old sample of a handwritten signed statement that my boss had given me, I wrote up a statement for him to review and sign. I wrote really slowly because I have terrible handwriting. 

I still had to decipher my handwriting as he read it. But he did review and sign the statement. 

It took way longer than it had any right to take. But, at least it was done.

The next day, I met with my boss to go over the work I had done. He advised me in no uncertain terms that it was really unwise for a witness to know where I lived, let alone to interview him in person at my home. 

He then went through the notes I took, and the handwritten statement, I wrote up. He asked if I had asked the witness this and that. I said no.

He shook his head.

Fortunately, the case involved a fairly minor accident, and I documented just enough usable information to make the interview and statement worthwhile.

Over the years, I got much better at conducting witness interviews. So good in fact, that attorneys thought nothing of sending me out-of-state, and even across the country to conduct critical interviews.

I conducted about 12,000 witness interviews during the 30 years that I did civil plaintiff case prep investigations. And many of those interviews were instrumental in getting favorable results for the clients.

That first interview was a real challenge. And I’m guessing that plaintiff attorneys and their staff might experience those same challenges I did when I first started conducting witness interviews. After all, they don’t teach witness interviews in law school.

But, for a plaintiff law firm, who gets paid only if they get a favorable result, learning how to conduct an investigation by trial and error can be very costly and time consuming. 

It can lead to throwing good money after bad on cases that shouldn’t have taken on. And to spending a lot of money out-of-pocket, on expensive discovery practices, like depositions, in order to get information that could have been obtained faster and much less expensively through conducting witness interviews.

Effective witness interviews, and other types of components that make up case investigations, are an integral part of successful plaintiff litigation work.

If you’re looking for a proven step-by-step process to create an effective in-house litigation investigation system that maximizes your clients’ recoveries, and your firm’s revenue, without trial and error, even if you’ve never conducted in-house investigations before, you should take my Maximize Client Recoveries and Firm Revenue with an Effective In-house Investigation System Workshop. 

You’ll learn:

• How an effective in-house investigation system maximizes case results. Helping you develop relevant and material evidence, while allowing you to maintain control over the information you develop for maximum effectiveness.
• The key elements necessary to developing an investigation plan. An effective investigation plan is the foundation for getting better quality information while reduces unpleasant surprises.
• Matching the right staff person to each investigation assignment. Assessing your staff’s skills and personalities helps you avoid dead ends and poor results.
• The 4 most effective investigation tools for plaintiff case preparation and the different ways they can be used. Allows you to not only maximize case results, but to do so cost effectively so that your clients and your firm get the most return.
• The most useful report formats. So that information can be properly conveyed to the different people involved in the preparation process so that you never overlook important and useful information.
• Organizing the information developed during your investigation. Developing useful information is a great start. But it’s of limited benefit without connecting it to your case themes that convinces opposing counsel, insurance companies, and triers of fact of the strength of your case.

Learn more and sign up now for the workshop by clicking here.