Precision Impeachment in Cross-Examination: Tailoring Impeachment Strategies for Every Witness

A pre-recorded streaming VIDEO replay of the July 2024 webcast, Precision Impeachment in Cross-Examination: Tailoring Impeachment Strategies for Every Witness.

The art of impeachment stands as a pivotal skill that can direct the tide of your case because impeachment leads to powerful cross-examination of adverse witnesses. This course equips you to identify and present impeachment evidence for a diverse array of witnesses, with insights on the challenges and hazards of examining expert witnesses. You learn how to identify inconsistencies in testimony, and how not to ask the “one question too many” while respecting the boundaries of impeachment set in the Rules of Evidence. 

From how to use prior inconsistent statements, to undermining expert opinions without directly confronting an expert’s domain knowledge, you come away ready to face adverse witnesses with confidence and skill. 

• Three essential elements to get impeachment right every time
• Impeachment by prior writings, prior convictions, and prior inconsistent statements
• What does it mean to commit a witness to in-court testimony, and why is it essential?
• Why it is important to credit an out-of-court statement or other impeachment material before confronting a witness with it
• How to impeach when the impeachment evidence is the absence of a record

Faculty

David M. Irvine, Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen / Charlottesville

Lee Livingston, Livingston Law Group, PLLC / Charlottesville

About the Speakers

David M. Irvine, Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen / Charlottesville

David Irvine is a trial attorney with Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen in Charlottesville, where he practices in the areas of personal injury and wrongful death. He serves on the Board of Governors of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, and on the Board of Directors of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association.

Lee Livingston, Livingston Law Group, PLLC / Charlottesville

Lee Livingston practices civil litigation, personal injury law, medical malpractice, and defamation law at his firm, Livingston Law Group, PLLC. He served as president of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association in 2017–2018. He is former chair of the Virginia State Bar Litigation Section Board of Governors and the Virginia State Bar Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Board. He is a fellow in the Virginia Law Foundation.

Mr. Livingston teaches Trial Advocacy and Professional Liability Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is co-author of Evidence for the Trial Lawyer, a Matthew-Bender (Lexis) publication. He has served on the Virginia Supreme Court’s Appellate Rules Advisory Committee and Electronic Filing Study Committee, and the Virginia Model Jury Instructions Committee. He is a member of the Boyd-Graves Conference and chairs its evidence committee.

Mr. Livingston is listed in Best Lawyers in Americaand was named Lawyer of the Year—2012 and 2021 Medical Malpractice, and Lawyer of the Year—2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021 Personal Injury, Charlottesville, Virginia. He is “AV-preeminent” rated by Martindale Hubbell, and he has been honored for selection by Richmond magazine as a top 100 Virginia “Super Lawyer” and a top 50 “Super Lawyer” in Richmond, Virginia. He was awarded the Professor W. McKinley Smiley Jr. Lighthouse Award by the Southern Trial Lawyers Association in 2019.