by Tom Stilp JD, MBA/MM, LLM, MSC, DBA, May 7th, 2026
Where one side to a lawsuit cannot get the upper hand in the lawsuit, bullying tactics come into play. The following is an excerpt from a deposition in an actual case.
First, let us provide a definition of a deposition. (See Stilp, T., “A Model Letter to Witnesses,” 82 Ill. Bar Journal 441). A deposition is a question-and-answer session by the attorneys litigating a lawsuit and a witness. Fundamentally, lawyers take depositions to discover what a witness knows and to preserve testimony for trial. The deposition is usually held in a lawyer’s office.
Depositions are extremely common in lawsuits. To set the stage, the questions in this deposition excerpt below we asked about the witnesses’ knowledge concerning a demand for payment that my office sent, a relatively simple thing:
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: . . . So the fact of the matter is there’s no relevance to this. You’re just wasting time.
ME: Well, it’s my time to waste.
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: Wah, wah, wah, wah. . . . In case I got out of line, you were going to slap me with this? Go ahead. Ouch. Stop. You’re hurting me.
ME: Counsel, I wouldn’t characterize it that way. I find that to be an unprofessional characterization.
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: I’m very unprofessional.
ME: Thank you for your testimony, putting that clearly , but I’m asking the witness.
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: Hold on. You’ve burned another bridge. We’re not getting into that.
ME: [Looking at the Witness] So you are not going to answer the question?
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: This is why this is so ludicrous it’s laughable: You sent the e-mail saying $10.3 million. Why did you send that e-mail demanding $10.3 million? And now you want to quiz him on whether he was worried about that.
ME: Yes.
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: It doesn’t matter. You sent it. He’s not going to answer why you did what you did. You still have your hand out. And until you do, it’s going to smacked down. So that’s the end of this.
ME: [Ignoring OPPOSING ATTORNEY, looking at Witness] So you took the $10.3 million as a credible —
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: You sent it. Are you not a credible lawyer? Are you, honest to God, asking him that question? You sent the e-mail. Now you want to say, oh, that was a joke.
ME: [To OPPOSING ATTORNEY] You need to calm down.
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: No. You need to grow up and you need to quit asking questions that are ridiculous.
ME: We’re not going to get personal about this.
OPPOSING ATTORNEY: Oh, kicking me out of the —
THE WITNESS: Why don’t we take a brief break?
The client of OPPOSING ATTORNEY eventually lost. We didn’t take the bait. The Court later ruled against them. Earnest Hemingway called it “grace under pressure.” After years of trial work (we’ve taken over 150 cases to trial), we’ve seen just about everything, and handled every kind of personality.
