The Witness Has to Get Hot Before You Raise the Temperature

AmLaw Litigation Daily highlighted William Frentzen's contributions to a Federal Bar Association panel discussion alongside retired U.S. District Judge William Alsup and Senior Judges Jeffrey White and Susan Illston. William offered valuable cross-examination advice, recommending listeners begin by being "very friendly, very polite, non-confrontational. You're asking them questions which are really simple. It's things everyone agrees to. The jurors already know what the answers to these questions are."

He noted the witness, primed to expect an attack through advice from opposing counsel or portrayals of cross-examination on TV and in movies, may resist propositions no reasonable person otherwise would and unintentionally demonstrate evasiveness without the cross-examiner having to point it out.

William said, "They may become evasive, and they may even fight you on things that they absolutely should not fight on... and all you're doing is asking some really simple, easy questions that they ought to answer."

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