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Ultimately, though, Ms. Maxwell could overrule her lawyers and decide to testify, said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law.

“Defendants rarely do,” he said, “but some have an exaggerated sense of their ability to handle aggressive government questioning.”

Mr. Richards questioned whether Ms. Maxwell, a former socialite who is the daughter of a onetime British media mogul, could endure a grueling cross-examination by a prosecutor.

“What I’ve read about her,” he said, “she’s very upper class, kind of cultured. And if she were to take the witness stand and be questioned by someone who she does not think is her equal, she might have a lot of trouble with that.”

Moira Penza, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn who led the prosecution team that won the 2019 racketeering conviction of Keith Raniere, the Nxivm sex cult leader, noted that defendants who testify essentially give up their right not to incriminate themselves.

On cross-examination, she said, “prosecutors have a lot of room to really retry their case through the defendant, to bring up again all of their best evidence, and beyond that, to attack the credibility of the witness in any way they can.”

Ms. Maxwell also faces two perjury charges — not part of her current trial — in which she has been accused of lying under oath during 2016 depositions she gave in a lawsuit related to Mr. Epstein.