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Depositions are one of the most important tools used in the legal process, and are essential to the processes of discovery, or submitting and obtaining evidence that will be used in a case. A deposition is a sworn statement taken out of court by a lawyer or attorney, which can then be presented and used as evidence in the court case. Because depositions tend to be quite long, a deposition summary is a critical way to distill down the deposition to a format that judges, other lawyers, and the jury can more easily digest.
When it comes to summarizing depositions, several different steps must be followed, and a few different types of formats are commonly used. Deposition summaries can have a profound effect on people’s lives and the world around us, so it is essential that they are accurate, unbiased, and not have any values or meanings imposed on them by the person summarizing beyond what is originally in the text.
In this article, we’ll cover the basics of how to write an effective and compelling deposition summary that gets the points across, is easy to understand and browse, and will be persuasive to a judge and jury.
Deposition Summary Basics
Usually, a deposition consists of a person appearing or testifying in court, whether as a witness, defendant, or otherwise, and is conducted at a lawyer’s office. Depositions may be conducted through video, audio, or any other recording format, such as shorthand. Often, paralegals will be present to help them understand the facts, and they will be the ones creating the summary.
Once the actual deposition is complete, there are usually hours and hours of audio or video, or many pages of transcripts. Most people don’t realize how quickly a written transcript of their speech adds up, and it’s easy to end up with hundreds of pages from an interview. The job of the person creating the summary is to take this mass of information and turn it into something a judge or juror can quickly get a grasp of the facts from.
Types of Deposition Summaries
Before the process begins, the person preparing the summary must choose a format from the three basic types of deposition summaries.
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Page-line
This is overall the most popular choice for deposition summaries, although it is a fairly labor-intensive process to create. How a page-line summary works is the person preparing it will succinctly summarize each relevant piece of information, and notate the page and line where it appears in the original document. This allows for a comprehensive but convenient method for understanding a deposition.
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Chronological
Because of the nature of court cases, often the timeline of events is of the utmost importance. In a chronological deposition summary, the resulting document will be laid out by times and events, which will be helpful for anyone wanting to prove where they were at a certain time or day.
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Topic by Topic
This type of deposition is usually considered the easiest, quickest, and cheapest. It more closely resembles a typical outline of a document, where facts are summarized and easy to read. It may be less organized and more difficult to understand but can do a good job of getting the basic facts across.
Summary Steps
Now that we have a clear understanding of what a deposition is and how they are formatted, we can delve deeper into how exactly to write one. Anyone who took excellent, beautiful, color-coded notes in college will have an easier time with this than those who were poor note-takers, scribbling on sheets of wrinkled paper. A lot of the same skills and attributes that create successful studying habits in students can be applied to creating a deposition summary.
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Reading
This is the critical step of taking the time to understand exactly what is going on in the transcript. Pay close attention to the questions asked by the attorney and what the responses are, and don’t rush through this process.
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Annotating
The process of annotating involves going through the transcript again and marking or highlighting the key points you feel need to be brought into the deposition summary. Make sure that anything that is left out is superfluous and will not affect the outcome of the case.
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Summarizing
This is where the key points from the annotation are brought out of the document and turned into one of the above formats. Organization is key, as those reading the summary must be able to quickly and easily grasp the key points.
Although these steps may seem simple, there is a lot of intuition and education that goes into knowing what facts are relevant and which are not. That’s why it’s always important to entrust a deposition summary to a legal team with experience and dedication to the case.
If these steps are followed, a deposition summary will be produced that is concise, efficient, and effective. This will help any court case, and facilitate the legal process that we all depend on to keep us safe and protected.