First Time Working With A Court Reporter In Real Time? Here Are Three Tips To Make The Process Run Smoothly
If your law firm has solicited real-time court reporting for a deposition, you might not be sure what to expect. Real-time reporting can be a useful tool for attorneys who won't be in the same room as the witness and the reporter, as the witness' testimony will appear on their laptop or computer screen. Here are some tips you can use so that the entire process proceeds smoothly.
Provide Access to Electronics in Advance
In order to ensure that the deposition proceeds smoothly and real-time reporting occurs seamlessly, you need to make sure that the court reporting service has access to the electronic devices you plan to use when following the deposition. A representative from the court reporting service will install the necessary software and do tests to make sure that you will be able to follow the deposition in real-time. If another lawyer will be following the deposition in another location, be sure to tell your court reporter so that their electronics can be set up properly, too.
If you don't do this beforehand, you will have to deal with a delay during the deposition as everything is set up. This can seem unprofessional and inconvenience the witness and opposing counsel.
Prevent Crosstalk
One of the most difficult things to manage when using court reporters is the tendency of witnesses and attorneys to talk over each other. This can make it hard for the court reporter to record everything that is being said. If you are transmitting information real-time to a number of locations, crosstalk can be particularly aggravating.
Before the deposition even begins, make sure to set some ground rules for everyone present. If you hear crosstalking, take a pause and give everyone an opportunity to repeat themselves or speak on their own so that the court reporter is best able to communicate the speech of everyone involved.
Ignore Misspellings and Minor Typos
If you are monitoring the real-time court reporting on your own tablet or laptop, you may see misspellings cross your screen and start to be a little concerned. However, it is important to realize that sometimes misspellings happen in a real-time situation so the reporter can quickly keep track of everything being said; a final report will be provided to you at a later date and will likely be edited and cleaned up.
Ignore misspellings in the transcript you are seeing, but if you aren't sure whether all the relevant information is being transmitted, by all means stop the court reporter and address your concerns.
Now that you have some tips for depositions using real-time reporting, use the tips above to help things go well. Ask Farrell Court Reporting or other court reporting services for more suggestions so that everyone can get the information they need to proceed.
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