The hard questions, before they’re on the record.
Testimony changes case outcomes. Truss stages the deposition before it happens: an AI examiner, the real questions, the real pace, as many rounds as your witness needs. You spend minutes on the report, not days in the conference room.
A live examiner, on camera, at real pace.
- A face-to-face examination over video. Your witness answers out loud, on the record, on camera.
- The examiner presses. It follows up on a hedge, re-asks what wasn’t answered, and moves on when it has enough.
- The witness runs it from a private link, on their own time. No account, nothing to install, no scheduling around you.
Testimony decides the case. Practice decides the testimony.
Your witness already knows the facts. A practice session is where they find out whether they can hold to them under questioning.
Familiarity
Knowing the rule and holding to it under pressure are different things. Answering from memory under questioning beats rereading the file: retrieval practice is one of the most replicated findings in learning research. The first time your witness hears the hard question should not be in the deposition.
Roediger & Karpicke, 2006
Confidence
In one of the best-known studies of jury decision-making, only one of ten factors tested reliably swayed jurors: how confidently the witness answered, not what they knew. Confidence is trainable.
Cutler, Penrod & Stuve, 1988
You direct the examination. Truss runs it.
Truss drafts the examination
Upload the case documents and any context that matters. Truss drafts each witness’s examination: topics in order, lead questions, and follow-ups. You edit it before it runs.
The witness practices
Send a private link. Your witness faces a live video examiner that asks the questions on your plan, and puts exhibits on their screen when it names them.
Review and go again
When the session ends, see exactly where your witness needs work, then run another session on exactly that.
Then you get the record.
Every session ends in a report on the transcript. Each answer is checked against the discipline you’re drilling. Where your witness guessed, volunteered, or adopted the examiner’s words, it’s flagged, with a link to that moment in the recording. You review an hour of testimony in minutes and scope the next session the same day.
The guardrails are built in.
Truss is designed around the ethics of witness preparation. It drills composure and discipline, never content.
Counsel stays in charge
The examiner only asks what you scoped. Truss drills composure and discipline. It never feeds a witness testimony.
asks only what you scopedDocuments stay scoped
Each witness sees only the documents you assign to them. Exhibits appear on their screen exactly when the examiner names them.
unassigned documents stay hiddenRecordings are set to expire
Each session recording carries a deletion date, 30 days after the session by default. You can move the date or clear it.
30-day defaultAsked and answered.
The questions counsel ask before their first matter. Anything else, ask us directly.
Does Truss replace attorney prep?+−
No. You supply the documents and the context; Truss drafts the examination from them, and you edit it or add topics of your own before it runs. Repetition is the part that has to happen more than once; strategy, the theory of the case, and the conversation only you can have with your client stay with you.
Is this witness coaching?+−
No. Truss drills composure and discipline: how your witness handles questioning, never what they should say. The examiner asks only what you scoped, and it never feeds testimony, suggests answers, or supplies facts. That is the line the ethics of witness preparation draw, and the product is built on your side of it.
We already prep our witnesses thoroughly. What does this add?+−
Truss reinforces strong prep rather than replacing it. A witness can leave a good prep call knowing exactly what to do and still freeze when the hard question comes from a stranger for real. Knowing the rules and holding to them under pressure are different things. Truss makes the deposition the fifth time your witness has faced that question, not the first, and the report shows you the specific areas that still need your follow-up.
Are practice sessions discoverable?+−
How preparation materials are treated varies by jurisdiction and situation, and that judgment stays with you. Truss gives you controls over what exists: each recording carries a deletion date, 30 days after the session by default, that you can move or clear, and a matter is shared only with the people you invite to it.
What does my witness need to run it?+−
A browser and a camera. You send a private link; the witness practices on their own time, without installing anything or attending a scheduled session.
Will my witness manage it on their own?+−
The link you send is theirs alone, and it opens the session with no account to make and nothing to download. Before anything starts, the lobby checks their camera and microphone and says so if something is wrong.