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The text transcript has long been the evidentiary gold standard for recording a witness’s sworn testimony and proving it in court. Transcripts are as potent a piece of evidence today as they were one hundred years ago. And yet, the black-and-white certainty of a typewritten transcript also leaves something to be desired. It strips spoken…

Efficiency is the name of the game in oral discovery. As a litigator, you have a limited window to schedule and take depositions. And when you sit down with a deponent, you need to cover substantive ground quickly. Efficient deposition practice means getting as much information as possible while spending the minimum time and money…

Like many industries, legal services changed dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to court sessions being held online rather than in-person, proceedings like legal depositions also had to be held virtually. While remote depositions have been used regularly by firms for over a decade—when circumstances made them a necessity—the pandemic forced law firms to…

Remote legal depositions are not something new that arrived only because we were dealing with a pandemic. In fact, remote depositions had been available for nearly a decade before COVID-19. The fact is that remote depositions were nearly always considered a tool of last resort rather than a preferred option. This changed dramatically during COVID-19.…

The United States currently faces a severe shortage of traditional court reporters who transcribe testimony in-person. A decline in licensed court reporters that began a decade ago accelerated during the pandemic. Current estimates put the shortfall at around 9,000 fewer stenographers than courts and lawyers need.  The dearth of court reporters has had a heavy…

Remote depositions have become a common feature of litigation in the past few years, particularly since the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic. As lawyers have gained comfort and familiarity with the virtual deposition paradigm and the technological innovations that have made it possible, they’ve learned lessons and developed protocols that facilitate conducting oral discovery remotely. …

For a business litigator, there’s little daylight between getting the job done right and getting it done on budget. That’s just the nature of the game. Business litigation clients often pay by the hour for legal services. They want their problems solved quickly and at minimum expense. Seasoned business litigators know that it might not…

Remote video depositions have become an increasingly common feature of litigation discovery, especially since the pandemic. Still, for many law firms, the promise of high-quality, low cost video testimony remains an elusive goal. Whatever savings firms achieve in conducting a witness examination remotely, they lose in the time and effort spent trying to manage the…

Remote depositions have become increasingly common over the past few years. But many litigators have struggled to achieve time and cost savings by taking depositions remotely. The convenience of being able to examine a witness from the comfort of your office, no travel required, has been offset by a raft of new challenges stemming from…

As you’ve no doubt noticed, hiring a court reporter to handle an in-person deposition is becoming increasingly expensive. Rates have risen faster than inflation and three key factors are to blame. A growing labor shortage has dogged the court reporting industry for the last decade. The Covid-19 pandemic pushed reporters out of the industry while…