By Jeffrey Baer, Senior Associate
We are here live at FIFEC and the atmosphere is electric! It’s so great to see attorneys, claim representatives and law enforcement joining forces in the war against fraud! We just wanted to share some interesting information learned the past couple of days.
Primarily, never underestimate the power of the 5th amendment.
Imagine you are handling a major affirmative action. Your co-counsel calls to share that the deposition of a key material witness is being canceled because he is going to invoke the 5th amendment. Immediately drop what you are doing, grab a court reporter and run to the deposition.
Invocation of the 5th amendment creates strong presumptions that could be extremely powerful at trial. Make sure you tailor your questions so they have the most significant impact when the witness invokes their 5th amendment right. Also, not every question warrants 5th amendment protection. A judge may compel the witness to answer questions instead of hiding behind the 5th. So use the witnesses invocation as a tool to strengthen your case at trial.
We will check back later in the conference.
Leave a Reply