During deposition, defendant doctors often fall victim to plaintiff counsel’s attempts to badger them into becoming defensive and argumentative, thereby turning Marcus Welby, M.D., into someone closer to Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This outcome is usually unnecessary.

Doctors who are inexperienced or uncomfortable testifying need to understand that opposing counsel is merely playing a word game with them and that they can take a lot of control back from the attorney (a concept that should appeal to most physicians) if they simply learn the rules of the game, and devote some time to practice sessions before being deposed. With a better deposition performance, they will spare themselves some uncomfortable time during trial by minimizing the need to explain poor deposition answers, and they will also give themselves more time to testify on the defense case themes.