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What New Attorneys Should Know About Depositions
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As a new attorney entering the world of taking depositions, you’re probably anxious about your performance – asking the right questions, not mumbling, and covering all of the material you need to cover. When your client is the deponent, though, be sure to focus a great deal of your preparation time on them.
Knowledge is Power
While you’re understandably nervous about your upcoming deposition, your client (unless they’re a seasoned expert witness) is probably 10 times as nervous. Giving a deposition isn’t an everyday occurrence, and the more your client knows about the procedures, the participants, and what to expect, the more comfortable they will be.
By spending some time conducting a mock deposition with your client, you’ll both be more prepared for the big day. Your client will gain confidence and you’ll be able to see any potential pitfalls before they occur. During the mock deposition, emphasize the importance of listening closely to questions and pausing before giving the answer. Ask the client questions you expect opposing counsel to ask, even “gotcha” questions, paying attention to your client’s reaction and demeanor.
A large part of preparing your witness for their deposition is helping them understand deposition procedure. Explain that they will be placed under oath, and the process of direct and cross-examination. The witness should also understand who all of the deposition participants are and the role they play.
It’s a Trap!
You never want to hear your witness say, “Can I add to that?” The best answers are always yes, no, I don’t know, and I don’t recall – and they’re effective in avoiding traps that opposing counsel has set. Be sure to tell your client that if there are times they feel they should elaborate on a yes or no answer (and opposing counsel doesn’t ask for any clarification) that they can talk to you about the issue privately during a break in the deposition and you might revisit the issue during cross-examination.
Your client should be prepared to hear you object to opposing counsel’s questions and how to handle them.
It is crucial to stress the importance of sticking to the truth. The witness should know not to guess or reach for the answers they believe the opposing counsel wants to hear.
It Isn’t About Winning
Depositions are an opportunity for the client to tell their side of events and to discuss the facts of the case, not to win or lose. Depositions should be used to gather and share information, and your clients should be instructed to keep their answers as short and direct as possible.
It’s Not Off the Record
Your client should know that nothing surrounding a deposition is off the record. This includes any conversations or interactions you or your client may have with opposing counsel or their client before or after the deposition. They should know that anything they say or do can be used by opposing counsel to craft their case or present it during trial.
The Bottom Line
Depositions can help clarify questions and diffuse potential challenges to your client’s claims and should never be taken lightly. Time spent preparing yourself and your client for the process will ensure a better outcome.
Call Winston-Salem Court Reporting for your next deposition in the Piedmont Triad area. We have experienced court reporters and legal videographers. Remember, our conference rooms are ALWAYS free. Call now to set up your next deposition (336) 923-7429 or book online now!
Need Quick Turnaround on Your Transcript?
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Here’s How You Can Help
There are
times that you’ll need your deposition transcript sooner than the standard 10
business day turnaround. Whether you’ll need it in five business days or
overnight, there are some things you can do to help your court reporter with a
quick turnaround.
Let us know in advance
If your court reporting firm is notified ahead of time, your transcript can
be turned around overnight or even faster. With advance notice they can ensure
that the reporter assigned to the deposition doesn’t have other expedited
transcripts on the same day, and that production staff is available to deliver
the transcript. If the court reporter isn’t notified until the end of the deposition – or even just prior to its start – they will
still do their best to meet your request, but might not be able to.
Communicate with your staff
Make sure that your paralegal and support staff have accurate information
about deadlines and when you’ll need the transcript. This will avoid a
last-minute expedite request and the possibility that the court reporter won’t
be able to accommodate your request.
Be specific
People interpret things differently, so be extremely clear about when you
need the transcript. Attorneys often say “as soon as possible,” which
to a court reporter can mean, “drop everything else you’re doing and do
nothing else until I have this transcript.” Provide your court reporter
with a specific date and time you’ll need your expedited transcript.
Give additional information
If you have multiple days of depositions in a row, let the reporter know if
you’ll need rough drafts of the transcripts the evening of or day after each
day of depositions. The rough draft won’t be perfect and it won’t be a
certified verbatim transcript, but it will give you something to work with.
Provide technical terminology in advance
If your deposition will be technical in nature, provide terminology to your
court reporter at least a day before the deposition. If you don’t have a list
of technical terms prepared, you can send the court reporter answers to
interrogatories or other discovery documents so they can scan them for
technical terms. This will save them time in looking up the terms or needing to
contact you for a spelling.
No, Siri and Alexa Won’t Make Court Reporters Irrelevant
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In this age where people ask Siri for directions to a new restaurant, tell Alexa to turn up the thermostat, or dictate texts and tweets on their smartphone using voice-to-text technology, some are wondering whether deposition and courtroom-based court reporters will soon be replaced by machines.
Here are five reasons that the voice recognition technology that powers Siri and Alexa will not replace court reporters any time soon:
First, when you use the voice-to-text feature on your phone or interact with Siri or Alexa, the interaction is between the technology and one human being. In a courtroom or deposition setting, the interactions are human to human, or human to human to human – with interruptions.
Second, when people use Siri or Alexa, their questions or commands usually fall within a narrow range of topics, which the apps have already been programmed to recognize. In a legal setting, any topic could be covered on any given day, and in courtrooms multiple topics are covered in one day.
Third, apps like Siri, Alexa, and voice-to-text are usually used by only one person or a handful of people (in the case of an Alexa in the home). Over time, the apps learn the voice and speech patterns of those people and their translations become more accurate. “When you talk to Alexa you are mostly using the same five sentences. Turn the light off, or order me this. Play this song,” said Gerald Friedland, an adjunct associate professor in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. “The moment you go from humans talking to computers to humans talking to humans, things get much harder.”
Fourth, hundreds of people are heard in a single courtroom in any given year, appearing as counsel, witnesses, or parties to litigation. Some speak with heavy accents or regional dialects. The technology has not advanced to the point where it can accurately recognize accented speech or colloquialisms.
Fifth, unless voice recognition technology is going to be trained to stop the proceedings when attorneys speak over each other or are speaking too fast, the resulting transcript will be gobbledygook. As one attorney recently said:
“Lawyers tend to forget that when in court they are making a record, and get lost in the heat of the moment,” said Nate Alder, an attorney with Christensen and Jensen in Salt Lake City, Utah. “If you were to go to a deposition, court reporters are always reminding lawyers to speak one at a time. I think the highest level of accuracy is a court reporter slowing everyone down and making sure everyone takes their time.”
Even if the technology advanced to the point where these shortcomings were addressed, it would still be necessary to have a trained court reporter review the transcript for accuracy and provide a certified copy. There is too much at stake in civil lawsuits and criminal trials to allow any margin of error.
At Winston-Salem Court Reporting, we understand how important accurate, timely deposition transcripts are to you. Schedule your next North Carolina deposition today using our online tool or calling 336-790-1819.
Are you Frustrated by a Court Reporter’s Interruptions?
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Here’s How You Can Prevent Them.
Believe it or not, your court reporter wants to interrupt a
deposition about as much as you want them to. That is, they’d rather not
interrupt at all. Court reporters are the guardians of the record, however, a
responsibility they take seriously. They are concentrating on every single word
uttered by each participant in your deposition or hearing and will interrupt
immediately if they aren’t able to capture what is being said.
Clearly, when the court reporter speaks up it disrupts the
flow of your questioning and could cause you to forget where you were headed.
The reporter doesn’t mean any harm by interrupting; they’re just doing their
job.
The most common reasons a court reporter will interrupt a
deposition are:
- ·
Speed – All court reporters can take down fast
talkers, but there’s a limit. - ·
Mumbling – This usually goes along with speed,
but not always. Instances of mumbling increase when witnesses or attorneys are
reading along with a document or going through standard deposition
instructions. If the witness is naturally mush-mouthed, you’ll need to instruct
them to enunciate. - ·
Volume – If the court reporter can’t hear it, it
can’t get into the record. Attorneys usually don’t have a problem making
themselves heard, but a soft-spoken witness might need to be reminded to speak
up. - ·
Multiple people talking at the same time – When
multiple people are talking at the same time, the court reporter can only take
down what one speaker is saying. You won’t have full control over making sure
deposition participants don’t talk over each other, but if you do your part by
letting the other person finish speaking before you speak, that will go a long
way.
At your next deposition, keep these tips in mind and you’ll
experience few, if any, interruptions.
Schedule your next deposition online with Winston-Salem Court Reporting: http://winstonsalemcourtreporting.com/schedule-online
Is a court Reporter an Independent Contractor or an Employee
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Many deposition court reporters are attracted to the
profession because, while it can be intense, busy, and stressful, they have
more control over their schedule than a typical 9-to-5 job allows. A vast
percentage of deposition reporters are independent contractors, meaning they
don’t have the obligations or the benefits of an employee/employer relationship
with court reporting firms.
Since court reporters value flexibility, and court reporting firms
don’t want the burden of fixed overhead in a cyclical business, it’s been a
win-win situation. Independent contractor court reporters provide their own
equipment, aren’t required to accept all deposition assignments a firm sends
their way, are responsible for paying their own taxes (though they get to write
off mileage, equipment, professional dues, supplies, et cetera), but are only
paid for depositions they take. This is a classic example of an independent
contractor arrangement.
Fallout from the California Supreme Court’s ruling this year
in Dynamex is changing things for that
state’s independent contractors, however, and unsuspecting court reporting firms
could be hit in the wallet if their contracts and behavior don’t line up with
the new law. The ruling in the case was meant to discourage companies who expected
employee-type behaviors from independent contractors (drivers, in this case)
while not guaranteeing them a set number of hours or providing them with
benefits.
The Dynamex ruling
set out an ABC test to determine if a worker is an independent contractor or an
employee:
A – The worker is free from the
control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the
work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact;
B – The worker performs work that
is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and
C – The worker is customarily
engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the
same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity.
With that definition, court reporting firms will have to
ensure that they don’t exert any type of employer-type control over court
reporters (both in contract language and in practice), that they don’t have
court reporter employees on staff, and that reporters are free to provide
deposition services to other clients to make sure they don’t run afoul of this new law.
A Checklist for Deposition Scheduling
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Making it Simple – A Checklist for Deposition Scheduling
We love checklists! Whether it’s for honey-do chores or
making sure our production staff gets your transcript out without a hitch,
detailed checklists keep things on track and minimize stress.
Scheduling a deposition is easy – simply pick up the phone
or send an email, right? But if your paralegal doesn’t have all of the
pertinent information, or if that information is not communicated to the court
reporting firm, you run the risk of getting into some sticky, time-consuming,
or expensive situations.
To help avoid those situations, we’ve created this checklist.
1.Date and time
If attorneys will be participating
from various locations around the country, it’s helpful to list what the
deposition start time is in the
different time zones, such as, 12 noon Eastern, 11 a.m. Central, 10 a.m.
Mountain, 9 a.m. Pacific.
2.Location
Be sure to give the scheduling
department the correct address as well
as the phone number at the location. If there is anything unique about how to
find the location (for instance, if the signage isn’t readily visible from the
road, or the building is tucked away in the back of an office park), let them
know. Also, let them know if there are special instructions for arriving before
the regular operating hours of the business.
3.Estimated Length
We understand that even the attorneys
can’t provide an accurate estimated length of the job, but they’ll generally
know ahead of time if they anticipate a deposition to last 30 minutes or all
day. The reporter will be there as long as is necessary (and we’ve burned the
midnight oil on a few occasions) but knowing an estimated length will help us
to assign the best reporter for the job. If a reporter has a transcript
backlog, is leaving on vacation soon, or has evening commitments, we take all
of that into consideration when scheduling.
4.Caption or Style of the Case
Email the reporter a copy of the case
caption, pleading, or notice. Include the names and contact information of
opposing counsel and whom they represent. If the case is technical or has
specialized vocabulary, the pleadings are most helpful.
5.Future Depositions
If you know you will be taking
multiple depositions in the same case, let the scheduling department know.
They’ll make every attempt to have the same reporter cover each deposition.
6.Special Services
Do you need a videographer? What about an interpreter? Will you need a videoconference set up? Do you need to use our conference room
facilities?
7. Delivery Time
If you know you’ll need the transcript
sooner than our standard 10-12 business day turnaround, make sure to tell the
scheduler at the time of booking. If you know you’ll need it overnight or
within two or three business days, advising the scheduler ahead of time is even
more crucial. It’s also helpful to give the scheduler the trial date, because
cases closer to trial are more likely to result in expedited transcripts.
8.Delivery mode
At Winston-Salem Court Reporting, we
feature “Green Delivery.” Our standard transcript package includes a
PDF version of the full-size and condensed transcript (4 pages printed on one
page), with exhibits scanned and attached, and a TXT file. Hard copies of the
transcript and exhibits are optional; please let the scheduler know if you’ll
need a hard copy (other than the original).
Call now to book your next deposition with Winston-Salem Court
Reporting: 336-923-7429