A deposition is built to activate every element of a threat response: a hostile questioner, no control over the pace, hours of sustained attention, and a transcript that lasts forever. Under those conditions the body does what bodies do. Heart rate rises. Breath gets shallow. Working memory degrades. The part of the brain that produces careful, slow answers gets less blood. And the instinct that takes over is the worst one for a witness: explain, defend, persuade.
A lawsuit puts your body on alert and never turns it off, and the deposition is the day it peaks. A lawsuit lasts for years. Calming down doesn't work, because the attack is totalizing, relentless and cyclical. This pain does not stop on its own. It needs active intervention. We are that intervention.
What anxiety does to a witness
- You talk too much. Anxious witnesses answer the question they fear, not the one that was asked, and keep going. Every extra sentence is a new door.
- You speed up. Fast answers sound evasive and produce mistakes.
- You guess. "I don't recall" feels like failure under threat, so the gap gets filled with a guess that becomes testimony.
- You get angry. Usually around hour three. The transcript does not show that the question was unfair. It shows that you lost composure.
- You stop listening. Threat narrows attention, and you answer a question that was almost the question asked.
Calm, slow, brief.
The three qualities defense attorneys ask for most and get least. All three are states of the body before they are choices of the mind.
What we train
This is a specialty. The clinical word for the overall pattern is litigation stress. The word we use at the Institute is legal trauma, because it is the more accurate diagnosis, and it calls for a particular approach. What we provide is the right diagnosis and systematic treatment, in the right order, over time.
- Your physiology and your mentality for the deposition. Settled before you walk in, and able to settle again in every break, so that your attorney's preparation works in the room.
- Anger management, tone, pace. Everyone has the question that will make them angry. We find it beforehand, with your attorney's help, and train you to hear it and stay steady.
- The short answer. Yes. No. I don't recall. I don't know. Could you repeat the question. Trained out loud, under mild pressure, until it is the default and the long explanation is not.
- The day after. It is often worse than the day of. We plan for it.
We do not discuss the facts of your case, we do not coach your testimony, and we do not give legal advice. Those are your attorney's. Pressure becomes focus; the facts stay yours.
For attorneys
If you have a client who will be a poor witness because of nerves rather than facts, we are the referral. See refer a client.