Recent Call Committee presents: How to Cross Examine Series

Date: May 5, 12, 19 and 26

The Recent Call Committee is back again with our Second How to Series of 2022! This time, we’ll be focusing on how to cross examine different types of witnesses since trials are getting back to running full time.

The series has four sessions that are each 1.5 hours taught by four different well respected senior practitioners in the following areas:

1) How to Cross Examine Expert Witnesses – Thursday, May 5, 2022, 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Solomon Friedman, a criminal lawyer in Ottawa, Ontario will be teaching us how to prepare to Cross examine the Crown’s expert, how to prepare your own expert witness, when to challenge necessity and how to do so, maintaining privilege with your own expert, rules around disclosure and more
the session will give you the necessary tools to go forward with expert evidence and there will be time allotted to have participants ask questions as well

2) How to Cross Examine Sexual Assault Complainants – Thursday, May 12, 2022, 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Francesca Yaskiel, a criminal lawyer in Toronto, Ontario will teach us how to effectively cross examine sexual assault complainants
She will teach us how to deal with medical evidence of injuries, deciding whether to call your client, how to tell your client’s story through cross examination, motive to lie, the defence of honest but mistaken belief, how to decide to go judge alone or with a jury, how to review the statement to best benefit your cross examination, and how to address any bad facts in your case
The session will teach you how to deal with the hard situations in these trials and how to make the best of your cross examination

3) How to Cross Examine Police Officers – Thursday, May 19, 2022, 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Michael Edelson, criminal lawyer and a professor at the University of Ottawa will teach us how to cross examine police officers
We will focus on how to cross examine for Leaney Applications, highlight some important areas of crossing officers on Charter applications, how to cross officers when they are testifying in their capacity as officers versus expert witnesses (eg. Drug experts or DRE officers), crossing the officer that says they “don’t recall”, when they have very poor notes, and more

4) How to Cross Examine Children and Difficult Witnesses – Thursday, May 26, 2022 – 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Shauna Pemberton, a criminal lawyer in Peel Region in Ontario will be teaching us how to cross examine children and difficult witnesses
She will teach us how to start a cross examination with a child, how to deal with sensitive issues and simplifying your questions
She will also teach us how to challenge/push a child witness without having them shut down, how to deal with memory issues, challenge credibility and reliability issues, and more
With difficult witnesses, she will teach us how to deal with rambling witnesses, emotional witnesses, the angry/combative witness, and how to ensure that you’re not letting your witness get away with answering your questions

These sessions are invaluable to our growth as lawyers, so we suggest you sign up as soon as possible so that you do not miss out! Once you sign up, you are signed up for all four sessions. The sessions will be recorded and may be made available for viewing by registrants at a later date.

Open to CLA members called in or after 2015 + student members for FREE.

This event is accredited for 4 substantive CPD hours.