This is the second of a three part series regarding CEO depositions. I invite you to read Part I.
In part one I explained why CEO's often make bad witnesses and what you need to do to convince them that they need to properly prepare for their depositons. Now, I will provide a tip on how to prepare CEOs for their depositions.
Many years ago I read a biography of Ronald Regan. The biographer explained how President Reagan's staff prepared him for press conferences by not over inundating him with facts. They typically advised that every question will have an answer that can be plugged into a theme or themes, such as:
- the Soviet Union is an evil empire;
- taxes need to be lowered;
- spending needs to be cut;
- military spending needs to be increased;
- if you have no idea what the question is about, say you will look into it and get back to him.
The same principals apply to CEO depositions. They frequently do not have a lot of time to prepare for depositions and are often not masters of the facts. Typically, their underlings have performed the tasks and they have supervised from 30,000 feet.
On the other hand, plaintiffs' lawyers often seek out the depositions of the highest ranking employee in an effort to show that he was asleep at the switch or is uninformed. Hence, the strategy of plaintiffs' lawyers is often to embarrass the defendant when its CEO repeatedly answers questions with "I do not recall" or "I do not know."
By focusing the CEO on themes this can be avoided. Of course, a witness should not provide an answer to a question when he does not know the answer. However, it is not difficult to provide some information without appearing completely uninformed. At a minimum, this can reduce the bad sound bytes that plaintiffs lawyers enjoy.
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