Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Witness contact by oposing party prior to trial

It is clearly not inappropriate for opposing counsel to attempt to interview a disclosed witness. If the witness does not want to talk to the opposing attorney they can refuse, but the opposing attorney may then depose them and force their testimony (by subpoena and notice of deposition).

Re: Witness contact by oposing party prior to trial

There is no RCW that supports your position. Off hand I don't know the RCW that allows an attorney to contact those on your witness list, because I've never had this come up. The point of disclosing your witness lists to each other and their contact information is so that each side can contact those on the other's side to discuss their testimony.

Having said that, it is possible to violate certain rules by talking with those witnesses, but that comes in the form of behavior such as trying to bribe a witness not to testify or to alter their testimony in some way, or threatening harm to the witness or someone they care about if they agree to testify, etc. Those are crimes that is proven become very serious. However, as I said, the mere contacting of your witnesses by the opposing party or their attorney is not by itself improper.