Software Depo
Depo-sition that is. Yep, tomorrow is the big day – my first deposition as a software development methodology expert. We – the attorneys, the client, and the other experts (bioinformatics – its a health/medical related case) – met yesterday for a strategy session.
Most of it was to discuss the opposition’s expert witness report and help them tear holes in it. It was remarkably easy to do that. It felt like their expert had barely looked at the application and was using boilerplate for most of it. For a couple of hours we went through it section by section, giving the attorneys arguments on how to discredit it.
Of course, this had me thinking – if we are doing this, the other side would be as well. Fortunately, we moved on to looking over our reports. Spent about a half hour on the other expert report, clarifying points, etc. When it came time to review mine, everyone agreed that it was spot on and didn’t need defending. W00t!
Funny thing is, they spent maybe 15 minutes prepping us for deposition. One of the take aways for me was that we aren’t there to educate opposing council. If they ask us about points in their reports, and to justify why we might differ, we are supposed to be as truthful and forthcoming as possible, while saying as little as possible. They can’t revise their reports (and neither can we) but anything said can be used to direct council when it comes to trial/arbitration. If we tell them that whole swaths of their report are bogus, and they go back and see that its so, they know to change their arguments to avoid those sections.
Anyways, it should be interesting. I get to blather on and act like a know-it-all, and no one can complain because thats what they hired me to do!
No related posts.
