Module 6

Interviewing in practice: clients, witnesses, experts and hostile people, and the rules and ethics

The earlier modules gave the parts: listening, memory, questions and ways of weighing what you hear. This one puts them together into interviews with different people in different circumstances: a client at the start of a matter, a friendly witness, an expert, a reluctant or hostile person and, where a lawyer is involved, a suspect. It follows the PEACE structure introduced in Module 3 (plan, engage and explain, account, close, evaluate), and shows how it adapts. It also deals with what to do when an account contradicts itself or an earlier statement, how to handle evasion without accusing, remote and interpreted interviews, and recording and notes. The second half is about the rules and ethics that frame any interview: the limits on contacting people who are represented, the line between preparing a witness and coaching one, confidentiality and privilege, and the evidence that coercive interrogation produces unreliable and false confessions. Rules differ widely between countries, and this module states principles and tells you to check the rules that apply to you. See also The Client Conversation, for the first client meeting, and the Witness Preparation Simulator, for practice under cross-examination. All the people are invented.

General education on listening and interviewing, using invented people, firms and events. It states psychological research in broad terms and is not a substitute for specialist training, and it is not legal advice. Rules on interviewing, contact with witnesses and represented persons, recording and the interviewing of suspects and vulnerable people differ between countries and change: check the rules that apply to you and take advice.