Coming up with questions for a case

When I wrote about going to court, I mentioned that I had to come up with questions to ask the client as well as the opposing side. I will use my own case to describe the processes I went through when coming up with questions.

In my case with my apartment, I was being taken to court for a security deposit. The apartment's claim was that because I had taken in an abandoned kitten, I had to forfeit my security deposit. To my knowledge, they wanted my deposit because of possible damage that the kitten could have made to the apartment. My lawyer asked me to come up with questions to ask me and to ask the opposing side when we were in court.

I didn't know where to start or what kind of questions I should ask. When I asked Harry, he told me that I wanted to ask questions that would benifit my side. He said since the apartment is saying that they want the security deposit for possible damages that occur, I should ask questions of where the damage was.

For example, these are some of the questions I came up with to ask the apartment:

Was there damage done to the apartment?
Was the carpet damaged in the living room, the three bedrooms, and the hallway?
Was there damage done to the tile in the kitchen and the bathroom?
Was there damage done to the walls in the apartment?
Who came to check the damage?
Is there any evidence of the "damage" (i.e. pictures, video, etc.)?
Are there any scratch marks done to the walls or the carpet or the tile in any of the rooms?
Are there any urine stains on the carpet?

These questions may seem a bit repetitive, but it is done so for a reason. We wanted to prove that the apartment had no such damage done to it and if there was damage, there was no hard evidence of it. There were no photos or video taken, and the only person who came by to check was a maintenance guy who said he couldn't tell there was any animal in the apartment.

These questions are used so that the apartment has to answer them honestly and after they answer "no," then the Court would see that a forfeited security deposit was not necessary.

When coming up with questions to ask me, they were questions that would show the Court that I am a responsible tenant who was trying to do the right thing.

For example, these are some of the questions I came up with to ask me:

Do you live at this (insert address) apartment?
How long have you lived there?
Have you paid all your rent and bills on time?
Why did you take in this abandoned kitten?
Were you planning on keeping it as a pet?
Did you do everything you could to find it a home?
How long did you have it before you found a home for it?
Was there any damage done to the apartment because of it?
Did anyone come by to check the apartment?

These kinds of questions would help the Court see that I was in fact a good tenant and that I had only taken in the kitten because I was trying to save it. By showing that I had no intention of ever keeping it, the Court sees that I was not trying to go against the landlord, but instead help a kitten that had nowhere to go.

When coming up with these questions, it's important to remember that you always want to ask questions that will benefit your client. You want questions that will force the opposing side to admit their wrong-doings and prove that the client was right in their decisions and that they should not have to comply to the opposing side.