Any victim of a personal injury needs to spend time recovering from his or her injuries. Unfortunately, those that hope to be compensated for any such injury should set aside some time for completing preparations. Those victims must get ready to handle the types of questions asked during the course of a personal injury trial. The preparations begin well before the trial gets started.

Initial preparations are undertaken during the discovery

The discovery is a time when the two sides share their evidence. As part of that sharing, the plaintiff and the defendant must respond to the inquiries made by the opponent’s lawyer. Once the discovery session has come to an end, each client must read the documents given to him or her by their own lawyer.

Those documents should contain some familiar sentences and phrases. If you are the plaintiff, then you will find in those documents the answers that you gave to the inquiries, as the discovery process moved forward. Understand that when you get onto the witness stand, your lawyer expects you to give the same answers that you gave during the discovery.

Have a series of meetings with your attorney

Together, the two of you should prepare the testimony that you will be presenting on the witness stand. Learn what questions your Personal Injury Lawyer in Saint John will ask you during the trial. Some of those will allow members of the jury to become acquainted with your background information. Some will be about what happened at the time of the accident.

During more than one of the meetings you need to practice for the cross-examination. As part of that practice session, your attorney will act the way that a defense lawyer does, when questioning the plaintiff. The lawyer’s actions normally force the plaintiff to deal with his or her weaknesses. You must try to overcome those same weaknesses, in order to strengthen your argument.

How to benefit the most from the practice for the cross-examination?

See if you can be taped while you answer the practice questions. Later you can watch that tape and note how you show your emotions. Also pay attention to the movements of your hands, arms and eyes. Such movements can send a message.

• Do not suggest that you want to put a barrier between you and the defendant’s attorney.
• Do not sit with your arms crossed over your chest. Limit the number of times that you cross your legs or ankles.
• Learn how to establish and then maintain good eye contact with the person that is asking you questions.
• Do not glare or stare. Instead, look at the region on your questioner’s face that lies between the eyes and the chin.