3 Tips For Choosing A Witness In A Personal Injury Case

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3 Tips For Choosing A Witness In A Personal Injury Case

23 March 2015
 Categories: Law, Blog


Whether or not you hire a lawyer for your personal injury case, it will likely be up to you to find and contact witnesses that will help you gain the advantage during the personal injury court case. Look at these three tips in order to determine who would be a good witness for your case and help ensure that you get the compensation that you deserve.

1. Make Sure that the Witness Will Not Benefit From the Case

In order to thank your witness for taking the trouble to come to court and testify, you might want to send them a thank you card with a small token of appreciation, such as a gift certificate. This is different than the witness actually benefiting from the outcome of the court case. Suppose that you were injured in a hardware store and, if it gets out, that hardware store will receive a lot of bad press. You do NOT want to choose a witness that has anything to do with a rival hardware store that is moving in across the street. Because the person associated with a rival store would obviously benefit if their rival received bad press, the judge will be likely to find that witness less credible.

2. Make Sure that the Witness is Certain of the Story

The last thing that you want in a court is contradictions. If you have a witness who is prone to exaggeration, is particularly forgetful, or wasn't really paying attention to the event, then you probably don't want to choose him or her. This is because a witness with any of these characteristics or features is much more likely to have contradictions in his or her story. If your witness says that the hammer fell on your toe and then later changes the story and says that you stubbed your toe on a hammer that was already on the floor, nothing else your witness says will be taken seriously.

3. Make Sure that the Witness Knows How to Act in Court

In court, appearances matter. If your witness comes in dressed inappropriately or does not know how to behave appropriately, then that witness will not be taken seriously and your case will be damaged. If you only have one witness, but you suspect that he or she will not behave well in court, then you need to make sure that you coach him or her through the process.

For more information, visit http://www.robertsfisherlaw.com or a similar website.