Course · Interpersonal Skills
Listening and Interviewing
The psychology and technique of getting the whole story: how to listen, how memory works, how to ask, how to weigh what you hear and what not to believe about lie detection.
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Almost everything a lawyer does depends on what other people say, and most lawyers are trained to talk, argue and answer rather than to listen and ask. The result is familiar: clients interrupted within seconds, witnesses led to say what the interviewer expects, and facts missed because the lawyer had decided in advance what the case was about. This course teaches the psychology and technique of listening and interviewing, using what research has found about attention, memory, questioning and judgement, and it is honest about what the research does not support. It begins with why listening is hard and what a lawyer is listening for; teaches active listening, from attending and silence to paraphrase, reflection and summary; explains how memory really works, what damages it and what helps, and teaches the cognitive interview and the PEACE model; sets out the kinds of question and the funnel that moves from open to closed; examines what decades of research say about detecting lies, body language and neuro-linguistic programming (little support for the popular claims) and what actually helps in weighing an account; applies all this to interviewing clients, witnesses, experts and hostile people within the rules on contact, preparation and coercion; and ends with written questions, follow-up, witness statements, reading messages and the use of AI summaries. A capstone investigates a fire at an invented boatyard. It differs from The Client Conversation, which covers the first client meeting, and builds on it. Every person and event is invented.
The Curriculum
The listening mind: why listening is hard, and what a lawyer is listening for→
Why listening is hard, the ladder of inference, bias, what to listen for, interruption and the listening stance. Practice: Climb Down the Ladder, What Was Said and Spot the Habit.
Active listening: attending, silence, reflecting and summarising→
Attending, silence, encouragers, paraphrase, reflecting feeling, summaries, notes, remote listening and anger. Practice: Respond Like a Listener, Reflect or React and Spot the Slip.
Memory and the cognitive interview: how people remember, and how to help them→
Memory as reconstruction, stress and delay, suggestion, confidence, central and peripheral detail, the cognitive interview and PEACE. Practice: Statement Comparison Table, Help the Memory and Spot the Contamination.
The art of questions: open, probing, closed and leading, and how to sequence them→
Open, probing, closed, leading, forced and multiple questions; the funnel; planning; sensitive topics; vulnerable interviewees. Practice: Question Type Analyzer, Better Question and Spot the Weak Question.
Weighing what you hear: lie detection, body language, NLP and what actually helps→
What research says about lie detection, body language and NLP; what helps; checking against evidence; bias and culture. Practice: Account Evaluator, Myth or Method and Spot the Shortcut.
Interviewing in practice: clients, witnesses, experts and hostile people, and the rules and ethics→
Planning and structure, clients, witnesses, experts, hostile people, contradiction, remote and interpreted interviews, and the rules: coaching, represented persons, coercion. Practice: Plan the Interview, Right or Wrong and Spot the Line.
Writing questions and reading between the lines: emails, forms, statements and what is not said→
Questions in emails and forms, follow-up that checks understanding, witness statements in the witness’s words, reading written messages, AI summaries and a listening habit. Practice: Question Type Analyzer, Rewrite the Email and Spot the Gap.
Capstone: Capstone: the Brindle Boatworks fire→
A fire at a boatyard, three people to interview and two accounts that conflict. Plan, question, compare, weigh and follow up.
What It Covers
“You will be able to listen so that people tell you more, ask so that the answers can be trusted and weigh what you hear without relying on myths.”
- Seven modules and a capstone that go from the psychology of the listener to memory, questions, the weighing of accounts and the rules and ethics of interviewing, with the research stated in broad, honest terms.
- Three working tools with invented data: a Question Type Analyzer that classifies a list of questions and warns of leading, multiple and closed-first habits, a Statement Comparison Table that separates normal differences from conflicts on central points, and an Account Evaluator that weighs an account on seven features and leaves demeanour out on purpose.
- Honest about the myths: what research says about lie detection, body language, eye movements and NLP, and what to do instead.
- Jurisdiction-neutral: it states principles on contact with represented persons, witness preparation, recording and interviewing suspects, and tells you to check the rules where you work.
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Or give this as a giftOther Scrolls in This Chamber
Across the Table$15 →Interests, walk-away numbers, offers, trades, pressure tactics and professional limits, with practice rooms and calculators.
Cooling the Room$15 →How conflict escalates, mapping a dispute, de-escalation, hard conversations, choosing a process, mediation, power, culture and ethics, with practice mediations.The Client Conversation$15 →Trust, the first meeting, fees and scope, updates in plain words, advice and decisions, bad news, boundaries and ethics, with practice meetings.Module 1 is free to try. Sign in, pass each module quiz and the course average, and your Certificate of Completion is emailed to you automatically. This course teaches method and technique with invented people and figures; it is general education, not legal advice, and professional rules differ from country to country.
Common questions
- Does it teach NLP or body-language reading?
- No. It explains what research says about both (that people are barely better than chance at detecting lies from manner, and that reviews of NLP’s central claims have found little support), and teaches the methods that do help: checking accounts against other evidence, good questions and careful listening. Parts of what is sold as NLP, such as building rapport, are covered as ordinary good practice.
- How does it differ from The Client Conversation?
- The Client Conversation covers the whole client relationship, including the first meeting, money, advice and difficult moments. This course focuses on the psychology and technique of listening and questioning, for clients, witnesses and others, including memory, the cognitive interview, weighing accounts and written questions.
- Is it about interrogating suspects?
- It covers investigative interviewing in general, including why coercive interrogation produces unreliable and false confessions and why information-gathering methods such as PEACE are safer and effective. It does not teach pressure techniques.
- Does it say what the rules are?
- It states general principles on contacting represented persons, preparing and coaching witnesses, recording and confidentiality, and tells you to check the rules that apply to you. Those rules differ between countries and courts.
- Are the tools real data?
- No. All people, firms, questions and accounts are invented. The tools help you think and are not a lie detector or a verdict, and run in your browser without sending anything anywhere.
- How do I get the Certificate of Completion?
- Sign in, pass each module quiz and keep a course average of at least 75. The certificate is then issued and emailed to you automatically.
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