We recently caught up with one of our barrister trainers, Jeremy Brier KC of Essex Court Chambers, to ask him about his experiences of delivering Assurety Witness Preparation.
Why is witness preparation important? It seems to me that witness preparation is an obvious move for anyone about to give evidence in Court. It doesn’t matter how clever you are, how knowledgeable or even how right you might be – if you don’t know how to express yourself, you won’t get your side of the story across in the most effective way. And you’ll come unstuck when tested in the crucible, by cross-examination.
What makes a good witness? The best witnesses for me are those that can be authentic and succinct. By authentic, I mean utterly truthful. Speaking from the heart, to use a cliché. Ultimately Judges want to hear the truth. But no need to over-share! Evidence needs to be relevant and that usually means short. Sometimes – indeed more often than you think – a yes or no answer might do. Saying too much just gives barristers more material.
I always encourage witnesses to see it as a game of tennis – hitting the ball back – rather than a game of chess. They should try to avoid trying to second guess where the cross-examination is going.
Have you learnt anything from training witnesses? What I’ve noticed in witness training is how shocked people are by their first experience of a robust cross-examination. The sustained pressure of the witness box is rarely replicated even in the most heated of rows that we are used to in day-to-day life. There is no escape, nowhere to hide. That is what witnesses find so hard. That it is a Marathon; not a sprint.
