Deposition transcripts are a vital resource for every case, yet they often contain so much information that they become difficult to use. A deposition may go on for several thousand words or more, but much of the content of the transcript can be useless to either the defense or the prosecution.
This can happen unintentionally on the part of the individual being questioned, or it can be an intentional tactic intended to make useful information difficult to find among all the diversions and irrelevant speech, effectively sucking all the air out of the room.
Fortunately, there is a new solution to these tactics. Deposition transcripts have often been summarized to make them more useful to the court, but summarizing a lengthy deposition can be a very long and expensive process.
Now, companies exist that partner with AI to create accurate, concise summaries of even the most confusing and lengthy deposition transcripts.
Deposition Summary: Brand New Technology For an Age-Old Task
This groundbreaking process converts a massive document down to a few relevant pages, allowing the lawyers, court reporter, and judges to gain a quick understanding of the content of the deposition.
If you’re on the fence about the usefulness of an AI-generated deposition summary, perhaps some deposition examples will demonstrate its utility.
Whether the deposition was performed with a plaintiff, a defendant, or an expert witness, there will be extraneous conversation and tangential information that only distracts from the relevance of the testimony.
Reading some deposition transcripts may make it crystal clear to you how helpful a deposition summary can be.
Where to Find Example Deposition Transcripts
It is surprisingly difficult to find good examples of deposition transcripts online in sources.
Readily Available Deposition Transcripts
For free legal deposition transcripts, your best resource may well be a Google image search.
This will reveal scans of pages from many transcripts on a variety of topics, and often, if you visit the webpage from which the image was pulled, you can find the full transcript.
Transcripts Through Subscription Services
If you need more in-depth and specific transcripts, or if you want to be able to search within the transcripts, your best bet will be to register with a service like TrialSmith or Expert Institute.
These databases contain thousands of deposition transcripts, many of which will demonstrate the value of a good summary in terms of saving time and expense in handling the information.
Transcripts From Court Public Records
In addition, you can utilize legal systems like PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) to pay for access to all court records in the United States, or directly contact court reporters about depositions from a specific case.
You can also contact your local court for documents related to specific cases, including deposition transcripts.
What To Do When Your Plaintiff’s or Defendant’s Deposition Is Too Long
Trial prep is a busy and chaotic time with tight deadlines and high stakes.
Digging through a deposition for relevant information can waste valuable hours. The judge and the court reporter will also not appreciate it when you present them with a giant ream of paper with no way to find the few pages’ worth of relevant information hidden inside.
But putting valuable members of your legal team on the task of creating a deposition summary can also be a waste of attorneys’ time and mental energy that could be better used elsewhere.
Sometimes these choices are unavoidable, but sometimes it is much better and less costly to outsource this job to a deposition summary company.
Outsourcing the Task
A well constructed deposition summary can form the backbone of a successful case, while a poorly constructed deposition summary–or a lengthy deposition transcript–can be enough to cause the judge to claim contempt, as the sheer volume of the information in the deposition serves to obfuscate the issue and make it difficult to find the actual evidence.
Summarizing a Legal Deposition: Creating Clarity and Concision
To spare the expense and time that long deposition transcripts can cost your team, and to show the court your respect for the process, send your deposition transcripts to a company that hires attorneys to verify the accuracy and usefulness of their summaries.
These summaries are generated with the help of AI, under the watchful eye of legal professionals. Whether the deposition is that of a witness or a plaintiff, the process remains the same.
The experts at the deposition summary company can also help you decide what kind of summary you should choose, whether it be a chronological summary, a page-line summary, or a topical summary.
Which form of summary is most useful will depend on the type of witness and the nature of the testimony.
The process of summarizing deposition testimony is long and tedious, so if your attorneys and paralegals have more important things to do, hand this task off to deposition summary professionals.
Great blog thanks