Lawyers' experience questioning children in Canadian court

• Published in: Child abuse & neglect Vol. 134; p. 105930
• Main Authors: Bruer, Kaila C., Williams, Shanna, Evans, Angela D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2022; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Attorneys; Behavior; Best practice; Best Practices; Canada; Child witness; Children; Children & youth; Courts; Female; Gender; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Judicial training; Lawyer; Lawyers; Male; Questioning; Self report; Surveys and Questionnaires; Trials; Witnesses; Canada; Judicial training; Lawyer; Child witness; Questioning
• ISSN: 0145-2134; 1873-7757
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105930

International research has explored lawyer-child interactions in court; however, little focus has been spent examining other aspects of lawyers' interactions with children (e.g., interview preparation; building rapport). The present study investigated lawyer's self-reported interactions with child witnesses. Participants included 96 lawyers (Mage = 40.34, SD = 11.07; 52 % female) practicing in Canada with experience questioning child witnesses (under 18 years old). A survey was used to gather self-reported data on how lawyers prepare for, question, and respond to children as witnesses in court. We then explored whether these strategies differed depending on the role of the Canadian lawyer (i.e., prosecution or defence), experience, or gender. Results indicate that lawyers report and demonstrate knowledge consistent with current best practices in questioning children. While gender and experience did not appear to play a strong role in lawyer-child interactions, prosecutors reported behavior more consistent with best practices compared to defence lawyers. These findings provide important insight into strengths and weaknesses of lawyer-child interactions in court as well as highlight a strong need for future research to examine the link between self-reported behavior (i.e., perceived behavior) with observable behavior (i.e., actual behavior) in lawyer-child interactions.