Plaintiff provides his witness list and a witness list he believes the defendant will provide. Plaintiffs also indicates, in his opinion, which witnesses are paramount to have in trial. Lastly, the plaintiff gives a dis position of each and every witness in his opinion.
In general, what is the basic criteria a lawyer uses to determine who is a good witness and who he will not use?
It's really hard to guess at exactly what you're asking. It's very common -- nearly universal, in fact -- for lawyers to have to identify at least their potential witnesses for their side in writing prior to trial. If you don't, you can't call that witness. I don't know what you mean, though, about indicating "which witnesses are paramount to have in trial," or what sort of "disposition" you mean. Deposition, perhaps? Regarding who's a "good witness," or the standards a lawyer uses to decide who he'll call at trial, that will vary spectacularly depending on the circumstances of every case. And it's an incredibly subjective judgment call, based on a combination of the lawyer's analysis of the facts & law, expectations about the judge and jury, expectations about the other side's witnesses, evaluation of each witness' credibility and persuasiveness, and a thousand other factors. If you have a lawyer, you should be discussing this with him or her. If you don't, then your question seems to be, "How can I be a good lawyer for myself when it comes to witness identification, selection, and use?" And that's WAY beyond the scope of what anyone can address on a public Q&A forum like this one. Nevertheless, good luck to you!
There are many "good" witnesses vs. "bad" witnesses. It all comes to what impact positive or negative the witness will make on the jury. If a bad impact, will not use him/her.
