What second-chairing a case against a multinational taught me about trial prep

The main thing second chair taught me is that trial prep is a discipline, not a budget. When the other side is a multinational, it usually has more lawyers, more hours and more money for experts, and none of that tells you who knows the record better. The team that can find the right page in four seconds has an advantage the other side cannot buy in the last week. That advantage gets built months before anyone stands up to give an opening.

I am writing about craft here, not about any client’s case. Trial strategy belongs to the client, and the details of a particular matter are not mine to publish. What follows is what second chair actually does, how exhibits and witness preparation get built, and where a lean team can out-prepare a large one. If you are a professional or a company heading toward a hearing or a trial, this is the quiet part of the work that decides most of what happens in the room.

What does second chair actually do?

Second chair is not a junior version of first chair. It is a different job. First chair carries the story and the relationship with the judge, the jury or the hearing panel. Second chair carries the record. That means the exhibits, the deposition transcripts, the impeachment material, the stipulations, the objections that have to be ready, the order of witnesses and whether the next one is actually in the hallway.

The most valuable thing second chair does is hold the whole file in working memory while first chair is focused on the one witness in front of them. A witness says something that cannot be squared with their deposition. First chair needs the page and the line now, not after the break. That is second chair. It can look clerical from the outside. It is not. It takes knowing the record well enough to recognize the contradiction before anyone else in the room does.

Second chair also owns the work that compounds. Exhibit lists, and objections to the other side’s list. Motions in limine. Deposition designations. Jury instructions where there is a jury, proposed findings of fact where there is not. An administrative hearing runs on a smaller scale than a civil trial, but the same structure is there, and the same person has to own it.

How is trial prep different when the other side has more resources?

Resource asymmetry changes tempo, not substance. A large team produces volume. More motions, more discovery requests, more deposition days, more experts, longer letters about smaller things. Some of that is thoroughness. A fair amount of it is a method. Volume is built to spend your attention, because attention is the one thing the smaller side cannot buy more of.

The answer to volume is triage, decided early and written down. Almost every case turns on two or three real questions. The rest is scenery. So you decide which questions those are, you spend disproportionately there, and you do competent, defensible, unglamorous work everywhere else. The mistake is treating every filing from the other side as an emergency that deserves a matching response.

Large teams also have handoffs. Work gets divided among people, and what the team knows lives in memos rather than in anyone’s head. Three lawyers each know a third of the chronology. On a small team, one or two people know all of it. That is a real advantage, and it is the main reason trial prep rewards continuity. Changing who owns the record in the middle of a case costs more than most people think.

How does an exhibit set actually get built?

An exhibit set is not a document dump with numbers on it. It is an argument arranged in order. The way to build one is backward. Start with the findings you want the decision maker to reach. For each one, identify the document that proves it, the witness who puts that document in, and what the other side will say about it. Anything that does not answer one of those three questions does not belong in the set.

The mechanics matter more than people expect. One master index. One numbering convention used from the first deposition through the last day of the hearing, so a document does not change names three times. Every exhibit tied to the testimony that introduces it. A column for the objection you expect and the response you plan to give. Authenticity and business records stipulations worked out in advance, because fighting about admissibility in front of the panel spends credibility you want for something else.

Then comes the hard part, which is cutting. Forty documents that each do work will beat four hundred that bury each other. Volume in an exhibit set reads as a lack of confidence. If you cannot say in one sentence why a document is in, take it out.

What does witness preparation really involve?

Witness preparation is not telling anyone what to say. That line is not blurry and it is not close. What preparation does is make sure the witness understands the question being asked, knows the documents with their name on them, and can tell the truth in an orderly way while someone is trying to rattle them.

In practice that means reading their prior statements with them, going through the documents they wrote or received, and running the cross they are going to get. The habits worth building are narrow ones. Answer the question that was asked, then stop. Do not guess. Do not help the other lawyer finish his thought. Know the difference between not knowing something and not remembering it, and say the one that is true.

Experts get the same treatment with one addition. The opinion has to be narrow enough to defend and broad enough to matter, and the expert has to know the limits of everything he has published before, because the other side has read all of it. Against a well funded opponent you will usually face more experts than you have. That is survivable when yours is tighter.

Where can a smaller team out-prepare a larger one?

In three places. Knowing the record cold, which comes from hours spent by the same people rather than total hours billed. Consistency of theory, because a small team says the same thing in the pleadings, the depositions, the motions and the closing. Speed of decision, because nobody has to circulate a recommendation for approval.

The most undervalued work product in trial prep is a clean chronology. Every fact, with a date, with the document or the testimony it came from, maintained from the first week of the case. It is tedious to build and it quietly wins arguments for two years. Most of the moments where a case turns are moments where somebody knows the sequence of events better than everyone else in the room.

None of that requires a bigger team. It requires deciding early that preparation is the strategy, then not renegotiating that with yourself in month seven when the other side files something loud.

Frequently asked questions

Do most cases that get prepared for trial actually get tried?

No. Most matters resolve before a verdict, in court and in administrative hearings alike. That is not a reason to prepare less. Settlement values and negotiated resolutions track how the case looks if it is actually tried, so the preparation is what makes the resolution reasonable.

Does second chair examine witnesses?

Often, yes. Splitting witnesses between first and second chair is common, and it is usually the right call when a witness is technical or when the record on that witness sits mostly with one lawyer. The split gets decided well in advance, not the night before.

When should trial preparation start?

At the beginning of the case, not after a trial date is set. The chronology, the numbering convention and the working theory all start with the first review of documents. Teams that treat preparation as a phase near the end spend their last two months rebuilding work they could have had the whole time.

Talk with Michael

I handle regulatory and administrative defense, professional licensing matters and fiduciary litigation, including cases where the other side has more people than we do. If you are heading toward a hearing or a trial and want a straight read on how the preparation should be built, I am glad to talk it through. Reach me through our contact page.

By Michael Cherba, Senior Attorney, Complex Litigation, AEGIS Law