I was taking in a Matlock rerun last week when, amidst hatching a plan to receive CLE credit for watching, I observed a hapless prosecutor on cross-examination asking case-damaging, open-ended and non-leading questions.

This caused me to snap back to a horrid memory of committing the same error in my trial techniques class in law school. My professor’s public reprimand rattled in my head: “Mr. Martin, when conducting a cross-examination, never ever, ever ask a question that you don’t know the answer to.”