When it comes to a deposition summary, it is best to think of it as the Cliffs Notes version of the deposition. It highlights the most relevant parts of the deposition and the lawyers will refer to it when they are preparing to take the case to trial.
When you are drafting the deposition summary, you want to do the best job possible. If you make mistakes, you could hinder your team of lawyers’ chances to effectively do their job in the courtroom, whether they are on the defense or prosecution. Here are mistakes to avoid when you are doing this important task.
Not Doing Background Work
If you don’t do the background work, then that is already putting you at a disadvantage. The first thing you need to do is look over the pleadings. That will allow you to start your writing with a firm idea of what the case will be about and knowing the complaints is the best first step.
In order to do that, see if you can pick out any allegations or statements that jump out at you as being something that is crucial and then see if it is mentioned in the deposition transcript.
You Leave Out Essential Details
This can be part of the background work, but it is also about you developing an eye for what you should include. As time goes by and you do more and more of these, then those things should start practically jumping out at you. Then you will become much better at it.
If you are inexperienced, it might help to also initially work with a mentor of sorts, someone who has done this many times before. They can look over the deposition themselves and look at your summary and make suggestions. You could consider them training wheels of sorts.
You Try to Put in Too Much Detail
While you don’t want to leave out important information, you also don’t want to overwhelm the other people who are going to be reading this. It can be easy to put every little thing that you think is relevant to the upcoming case. When you do that, you risk having the reader’s eyes glaze over. While it might be common for a layperson to be bored reading something, you don’t want your fellow lawyers to feel that way.
So it is important to be judicious when it comes to what you do or do not add to the deposition summary. Before you find yourself writing it out, ask yourself if it really needs to be there. While a beginner may decide to err on the side of caution, you will learn over time about using your own proper judgment when it comes to compiling this.
You Do A Poor Job Of Formatting the Report
When you write a deposition summary, you don’t just haphazardly write everything on there without any sense of structure. It will look as messy as your efforts. Instead, you should take a few minutes and ensure that you do this in such a way that it will be easy for those who are reading it to follow along and locate the relevant statements and know which person said it.
You can do something like a chart with two columns on it to have page numbers on one side and the relevant information on the other side. Make the first column thin for the page numbers and keep things looking neat. It will look like something that a professional will do – presentation does make a big difference.
Spend a little extra time formatting it and then it will all be worth it. Your co-workers will be able to read it and quickly pick out the relevant parts and then add whatever they need to their legal strategy. It can save a lot of time and headaches from trying to figure out what is on the summary.
When people watch lawyers during a trial, they don’t think about all the necessary work that went on before they came to the courtroom the first day. This is one of those things that go on in the background.
To be blunt, writing a deposition summary is going to take a lot of tedious work. It involves reading a LOT of paperwork. You may find it hard to focus at times, but if you stick it out … and even treat it as sort of a challenge to see how well you can identify the critical details and get them in there, you can do a great job of drafting the summary.
Ultimately, this is just one part of the jigsaw puzzle that is a courtroom strategy. But it is a very important one. If you make sure to avoid the above mistakes, you can greatly improve your chances of winning your case.