In this episode, veteran trial lawyer John Farrell distinguishes between refreshing recollection and impeachment, two essential but sometimes conflated courtroom skills. Learn how to help your own witness recall facts on direct examination through refreshing recollection and how to effectively challenge an opposing witness on cross with a structured, high-impact impeachment technique. Packed with practical language and strategy (and a few demos along the way), this conversation offers clear guidance on when and how to deploy these important skills that every trial lawyer needs to master.

Topics
3:13    Difference between refreshing recollection and impeachment
4:54    What’s wrong with “I don’t know” during examination
6:19    Using documents to refresh recollection
7:24    What’s wrong with “would” during refreshing recollection
8:41   Refreshing recollection demo
10:13 A crucial step to remember
13:21 The point of impeachment
14:37 Step 1 of impeaching by prior inconsistent statement
15:35 Demo
17:52 Why you should sound disappointed
18:50 Demo
19:20 Steps 2–6
23:21 Demo
27:21 Why impeachment better be worth the effort
30:05 Your tone through impeachment
33:16 Impeachment by omission
40:49 Consequences of a bad impeachment
41:56 Again, make impeachment worth your while
44:16 Signoff questions

Quote
“The reason [impeachment] is so important is that if you decide to impeach and you don’t do it correctly or successfully, the witness has just been told they can lie all the time on the stand. You’ve lost control. If you do it really well the first time, and the next time they go off message, they say something else different, and [the witness goes], “Well, no, that’s not right. It was Fact C.” And [you] go, “I don’t think so. Let's go to your depo transcript.” [The witness will] go, “Okay, fine, fine, it was C,” because they don’t want to go through that again. So I think it’s an important tool.” John Farrell

Resources
John Farrell (bio)
Refreshing Recollection and Impeachment (article)
Eight Steps for Handling Deposition Exhibits (podcast)
Deposition articles (1, 2, 3)