Examples Of Open Ended Questions

“Interviewing with Open-ended Questions”

When conducting an interview it’s important that paralegals and lawyers obtain as much information as possible during the interviews. One way to make sure this happens is by asking open ended questions, Open ended questions are designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject 's own knowledge and/or feelings. It is the opposite of a closed-ended question, which encourages a short or single-word answer. Open-ended questions are important also because have proven to be more objective and less leading than asking a closed-ended questions which will get you a yes or no answer. Being a paralegal in conducting an interview you want to make sure that the open-ended questions that you’re asking are staring with words like

Some examples of open ended questions I would ask during an interview with a client would be: Tell me how this incident took place, or tell me what happened leading up to the incident that took place. This question was designed to give the client in opportunity to open up about the incident and feel comfortable with putting in his/or her own words. Another example is to Ask the questions you feel are most important to the case such as “Is there anything else that might be relevant you could tell me?” This question is designed to allow the client to tell you that information that may have been forgotten or held back or maybe even missed earlier in the interview kind of a jolt to their memory. By asking the client this question you are making them think a little harder about the incident and may remember something they forgot to mention or maybe wasn’t comfortable mentioning earlier in the interview but after getting a little more comfortable with the process is less reluctant to give more