A good deposition summary is a powerful tool in virtually any court case. Deposition testimony can easily run into dozens or hundreds of pages, creating a hardship in utilizing them as evidence.
And by human nature, witness testimony can be notoriously rambling and unclear. It can take several pages of questions and answers before key information is fully expounded. Whether your case preparation is for a civil trial or criminal case, a full deposition transcript may only muddy the waters for the judge and jury.
But how is a complex testimony distilled down to a fraction of its original length? Whether you are working with testimony from an expert witness or just from a passerby who witnessed an incident, finding the right balance of brevity and accuracy is indeed a challenge.
You can anticipate that the judge will be comparing your summary to the deposition transcript, and if discrepancies are found, of course, there will be severe consequences for your case.
So how do you begin the deposition summary process? What is the outcome supposed to look like? Do certain types of testimony lend themselves to a chronological deposition summary, while others are better suited to a page-line deposition summary or a topical summary?
The best way for you to find the answers to these and other questions is with deposition summary examples. Unfortunately, such examples are surprisingly difficult to find. There are not many to be found in the public domain. If you have a specific testimony type whose summary you are attempting to emulate, you may become frustrated with the lack of information that is readily available.
Fortunately there are several resources specifically for legal professionals who are seeking deposition summary examples, from books to online databases. These will give you many samples of deposition summary formats, allowing attorneys to find the best way to present key testimony in their complex litigation.
Using these resources, legal teams can learn to create deposition summaries from lengthy deposition transcripts.
Use These Deposition Summary Examples To Help You Encapsulate Your Deposition Transcript
Deposition summaries can be found in a few places. A few old examples can appear in Google image searches as scans of pages from old cases, or pages from legal volumes.
However, more up-to-date samples of deposition summaries can only be found in current volumes or legal texts, or in databases dedicated to case law.
Probably the most useful source of deposition summary examples available today is the online database. Filled with transcripts and summaries as searchable text, these will give an in-depth look at successful examples of exactly the types of summaries you are looking for.
Databases For Legal Professionals
Several databases contain examples of deposition transcripts and summaries. These may be paid for by way of annual membership, or some allow the purchase of an individual deposition a la carte.
TrialSmith and Expert Institute are two sites that allow access to thousands of testimonies and summaries. The expense is not insignificant but the information that can be gleaned is vast–not just in regards to the process of summarizing depositions but also in terms of the amount of expert knowledge to be found in the testimonies themselves.
A deposition summary could easily be found in either of these databases, for a price, and the work of sifting through millions of pages of available data. But if you want to find page line summaries or other specific types, you will not be disappointed here.
PACER
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is a resource that makes court records available to anyone willing to pay for a membership. $30 for the quarter opens up a virtually infinite field of data from a variety of cases. You will be able to find a deposition summary (and the source deposition transcript) on virtually any topic… and you may struggle to weed through irrelevant material because so much is available.
Books, Old And New
The most exact match for finding out how to summarize depositions is Christine Bergren Greene’s book, Organizing and Summarizing Depositions For Paralegals. Published in 1990, this volume takes an in-depth look at the summarization process. Unfortunately, its strategies may be a bit out of date, but its principles of accurate and concise summaries will always hold true. A deposition summary based on the principles in this book will certainly serve you well.
And of course, Effective Deposition by Carl W. Chamberlin is the definitive textbook on how to handle all stages of the deposition process. In its sixth edition, it has been updated to stay current with relevant facts on modern technology and case strategy. Generating a deposition summary according to these principles will lead to excellent outcomes.
Other Ways to Expedite a Deposition Summary
If your legal team is coming up against a difficult deposition summary and struggling to arrive at a sound strategy, perhaps you haven’t heard that there are fast, reliable companies that can help.
Companies like 4 Corners Deposition Summaries have teams of legal professionals dedicated to summarizing depositions with the help of artificial intelligence. AI-powered deposition summaries are accurate, effective, and done in a fraction of the time.
The summarization process is time-consuming and expensive, and if you are up against a court date and have multiple depositions it may not even be possible. That is why companies like 4 Corners Deposition Summaries exist.
They can summarize the entire deposition in a fraction of the time it would take by traditional means, creating a document a fraction of the length of the original transcript. No relevant information will be left out, and the formatting options can be exactly what you choose–or else their experts can help you choose if you are struggling to decide.
Narrative Summary Format or Page Line Summaries: Legal Experts Can Help With Either
No matter what deposition summary formats the testimony and your needs dictate you can be sure that the legal experts at 4 Corners Deposition Summaries will help you achieve what you need to win your case. They can advise on whether page line summaries might most effectively convey the necessary information, or whether a narrative summary or chronological summary might better serve this particular deposition transcript.
Hire 4 Corners Deposition Summaries for quick turnaround and affordable pricing on your most vital deposition summary needs.