What You Need to Know for Your Next Expert Deposition
November 19, 2025
Eric Madsen, Ken Mathieu, and Peter Wrobel joined a virtual event with the American Bar Association (ABA) Litigation Section, alongside Elizabeth Fenton (Partner, Barnes & Thornburg LLP), Kenneth Berman (Partner, Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP), and Sunu Pillai (Partner, Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP). This program demonstrated best practices for preparing for, taking, and defending expert witness depositions through demonstrations of common pitfalls.
The session covered:
- Preparing the expert for deposition
- Whether to take a “dumb” deposition
- Questions to save for trial
- How to use the expert report effectively in a deposition
- How to use an expert’s own words to undermine opinion (articles, prior reports, prior depositions)
- How to use other literature to undermine opinion
- Teeing up a challenge to the expert’s qualifications and methodology
- Handling evasive or combative experts
- Deciding whether/what to ask as defending counsel to clean up the record
- Strategy questions related to whether defending counsel should address expert opinions that were not covered by the counsel who conducted the deposition
- Using the deposition transcript to structure an effective cross-examination
Prepare for what's next.
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