If you haven’t been deposed this will look weird. But depositions are about “gotcha” moments, so your job as the person being deposed is to play the game and only answer questions with minimal information and force the attorney asking questions to really work for it. It’s about being purely logical. If they ask you what two plus two is, respond vaguely and ask for clarification. “Are you asking about numbers? Or objects? What does plus mean in the context of this question.” Etc.
To the public, it looks like another "It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is."
The general public hates lawyers. But it hates weasels even more. And CEOs acting like weasels even more than that. That's why congressional hearings are sometimes delightful to watch. It feeds our hatred of CEO "others."
There are plenty of CEOs who can talk to lawyers, even in a public forum, and do it well. Splitting hairs never looks good. It makes you look guilty.
Gates wasn't splitting hairs there, though. "Concerned about" could mean "concerned about as potential competitors we need to pay attention to", "concerned about as potential competitors who might gain more market share than us", "concerned about as potential competitors we might need to stifle", "concerned about as a potential danger to our browser monopoly", "concerned about as potential competitors who might develop features users want which we should also look into developing", etc.
Any company offering a product could be said to have executives who are concerned about competing products. It could range from malicious, anti-competitive behavior to simply wanting to provide a good experience.
That's why Gates wanted the lawyer to use less charged, ambiguous language. I personally believe he was engaging in unethical anti-competitive behavior, but you're going to have to nail him on it fair and square, rather than playing word tricks with him.
>The general public hates lawyers. But it hates weasels even more. And CEOs acting like weasels even more than that.
The lawyer was the one employing weasel words, there, by definition [1]. "Paying attention to" or "aware of" would be a much more fair and clear phrase.
>Splitting hairs never looks good. It makes you look guilty.
Yes, and the lawyer was probably aware of that and deliberately exploiting the ability to create such a perception. Either you fall into the trap and later are pointed to as sounding guilty, or you demand rigor and sound guilty in the moment. It's a double bind.
[1] Oxford definition of "weasel words": "words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading."
On the contrary, he's making sure that Boies isn't going to weasel meaning into his responses. Demanding that questions be more precisely-worded than they are.
That's why I think he should have taken his own interpersonal and forced that through.
Which browser was he concerned about? Internet Explorer. Why? Because it's their product - in the browser space, that one is literally his main concern.
Evoking a "That's not what i meant" response comes across rather differently than the wordplay shown here.
And having the attorney narrow the question to sth like "but out of IE's competitors, which one concerns you?" is the open door you're looking for.
("None really concern me in any sense of the word.", etc.)
Even in the Clinton case there was a good reason he was asking for clarification. In his grand jury testimony he had stated "There's nothing going on between us." If 'there is' is interpreted as 'there is currently', then the statement is truthful; if it is interpreted as 'there is and has always been', then the statement is false.
Similarly, his statement "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" wasn't technically a lie in the context of the case. The investigation lawyers had textualized the definition of 'sexual relations' to be limited to PIV sexual intercorse, which he hadn't engaged in. So in a legal context his statement of not having 'sexaal relations' and his admission to having an 'improper physical relationship', were in no way contradictory.
However, when you take the statements out of that context and put them in the context of public opinion, it appears to be a bold faced lie. The more you play the game, the worse it looks outside of that context.
Having been deposed once the other lawyer spent 12 minutes asking me questions around a thing. The crux of the matter was if I had been verbally informed of what a line item was or if it was illegal to charge for said line item. This line item was unmarked on my receipt but marked on a different customers receipt as an illegal item to charge for.
Lawyer tried constantly to get me to answer a question that would set them up. At the end they gave up and asked "did they tell you this item was for X and they were not allowed to charge for that". "No.". The deposition ended there.
Given it was not a huge deal litigation and the deposition took place in my lawyer's dining room it was actually an interesting experience and not really uncomfortable. It was akin to doing a programming interview. Actually a lot less was on the line.
There was a reason it was the dining room. The guy wanted to make you feel comfortable, forget all about the deposition and just have a chat... so he can nail you to the cross with your own words.
Way to read. MY LAWYERS room. The end of the deposition was THEIR lawyer realizing they had no shot. The settled a few days later which is what we wanted.
