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The Best Deposition Transcript Results From Cooperation Between Attorneys and Court Reporters

Posted on July 25, 2024 in: Court Reporters, Depositions, lawyers, transcript|Comments Off on The Best Deposition Transcript Results From Cooperation Between Attorneys and Court Reporters

While over-talking can endanger a clear and concise deposition transcript, sometimes a larger danger is excessive interruptions and argumentation by and between the attorneys.

Human Court Reporters Can Keep Depositions Running Smoothly

Attorneys need to achieve many results from a deposition. Attorneys need to obtain the full range of facts and opinions possessed by the witness. Just as importantly, attorneys need a clear and concise deposition transcript to be used for trial preparation, for summary judgment and other motions to be filed with the judge, for impeachment purposes, and for settlement negotiations. Attorneys also want to keep costs down as much as possible. Since transcription costs are “per page,” focused depositions save money. Dedicated and experienced court reporting can help achieve all of these goals. If you need court reporting services for your depositions, call Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC, a top-tier national court reporting service. Our number is (866) 689-1837. We accept orders via email, phone, and online.

Digital Court Reporter at work

Over-talking can cause bloated, fragmented, and reduced quality transcripts

Over-talking by witnesses and attorneys is one reason that a transcript might become bloated, fragmented, and fail to achieve the quality needed for summary judgment motions and impeachment. The problem is that court reporters can only capture and transcribe one voice at a time. Thus, cooperation between the attorneys taking the deposition and the court reporters is important. Court reporters can help with polite interjections. But, court reporters must have the help of the attorneys too. Attorneys must “slow things down.” This is not uncommon at the beginning of a deposition when a witness, for example, might be overanxious and start answering before the question is finished. Attorneys should take the lead in slowing the witness down, but court reporters can help.

Court Reporters Reduce Over-Talking And Keep Proceedings Clear

While over-talking can endanger a clear and concise deposition transcript, sometimes a larger danger is excessive interruptions and argumentation by and between the attorneys. Of course, attorneys must interrupt at times to make evidentiary objections. These must generally be placed between a question and a witness’s answer. But, often, this leads to arguments — sometimes heated arguments — between the lawyers. Over-talking is a danger along with shouting, rude talk, and speed talk. All of these can be difficult to transcribe. Again, cooperation between court reporters and attorneys is essential. A polite comment from the court reporter will usually “calm things down” — something like: “Counsel — if you want to present this disagreement to the court, you will need to slow down so I can get each word on the transcript.”

It must be recognized that, sometimes, “sowing confusion” during a deposition can be a litigation tactic used by opposing counsel. In other words, excessive argumentation and intentionally rude behavior can be used as a tactic to distract the lead counsel’s effort to obtain a clear and reliable transcript. The question of “reliability” becomes activated by this tactic since opposing counsel can argue something like “the witness was so confused by all the people talking that the answer cannot be given credence.” But, even for a tactic of this sort, there must be a clear transcript. Judicious efforts by an experienced court reporter to “slow the talking down” can make a big difference.

Contact Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting Today

For more information, call the experienced court reporters at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting. We follow the best practices in order to provide excellent litigation support to our customers. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you.

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Introducing our Deposition Summary services

Posted on July 15, 2024 in: Depositions, New Service, transcript|Comments Off on Introducing our Deposition Summary services

You can significantly reduce the time spent on reviewing and summarizing transcripts. This allows you to focus on higher-value tasks such as case strategy, client consultations, and preparation for hearings or other depositions.

Deposition summaries play a critical role in building a strong case, but transcripts can be can be lengthy, complex, and time-consuming to review. Summarizing transcripts with efficiency and accuracy are critical, which is why we are here to help address these challenges with our new Gallo Guided Deposition Summary service. We’ll take on the hassle of analyzing and summarizing deposition transcripts for you, helping you to streamline your litigation workflow. Enjoy more time to meet with potential clients, strategize on your cases, or go deeper into your case law research.

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The Challenge of Summarizing Deposition Transcripts

Deposition transcripts are a treasure trove of information. From Witness testimonies to expert opinions, they provide critical details that can make or break a case, but their sheer volume and complexity often make them daunting to analyze. You can spend hours or days sifting through pages of text to extract relevant information, identify key themes, and create deposition summaries in preparation for court proceedings.

Our Solution: Gallo Guided Deposition Summaries

Gallo Guided Deposition Summaries are designed to revolutionize the way you handle deposition transcripts. Leveraging advanced artificial intelligence technologies, we offer a comprehensive suite of services to enhance your litigation support. Our service eliminates your need to spend hours and days preparing deposition summaries.  

Key Features of our Gallo Guided Deposition Summaries:

Automated Analysis:
Keyword Extraction: Our deposition summaries automatically identify crucial terms, names, dates, and phrases within the transcript.
Contextual Understanding: Deposition Summaries are created with an understanding of the context in which keywords are used to provide meaningful insights.

Summarization:
Concise Summaries: Generate precise summaries that capture the essence of witness testimonies, saving you valuable time.
Customizable Length: We can tailor the summary length to your specific needs, from brief abstract overviews to detailed narrative summaries. Additional options include Page-Line Summaries and citations, including 5:1 and 10:1 formats
Multi-Volume Support: Transcripts with multiple volumes are summarized into a single summary.

Integration and Compatibility:
Seamless Integration and Multiple Formats: Word, Text, PDF outputs enable easy compatibility with popular document management systems and legal software for integration into your existing workflow.

How Our Deposition Summaries Benefit Your Practice:

  1. Redirecting Your Time: With our analysis and summarization, you can significantly reduce the time spent on reviewing and summarizing transcripts. This allows you to focus on higher-value tasks such as case strategy, client consultations, and preparation for hearings or other depositions.
  2. Enhanced Accuracy: AI-powered software reduces the risk of human error, ensuring that no critical detail is overlooked. This leads to more accurate case preparation and stronger arguments in court.
  3. Improved Collaboration: Word, Text, and PDF output enables easy compatibility, facilitating better communication and collaboration among your team, and enhancing overall productivity.

Competitive Edge: Using cutting-edge technology like Gallo Guided summaries demonstrates a commitment to innovation and excellence, positioning your firm as a leader in the legal industry.

Get Started with a Gallo Guided Deposition Summary Today:

We invite you to experience the power of a Gallo Guided Deposition Summary. Contact our team to receive a personalized demo and answers to any questions you may have. Discover how our software can elevate your litigation support services and give you the competitive edge you need.

Contact us today to schedule your demo and take the first step towards revolutionizing your approach to deposition transcript summarization.

At Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, we want to provide legal professionals with litigation support solutions that enable them to build their best cases. Stay ahead of the curve with Gallo Guided Summaries and see the difference it can make in your practice.

For more information, contact our Business Development team.

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How Excellent Court Reporting Can Smooth the Process of Conducting Remote Depositions

Posted on May 8, 2024 in: Certified Georgia Court Reporters, Depositions, Remote Court Court Reporters, Remote Court Reporting, Remote Depo, Remote Deposition, Uncategorized|Comments Off on How Excellent Court Reporting Can Smooth the Process of Conducting Remote Depositions

The keys to a smooth-running remote deposition are "setting" both locations in advance, coordination during the deposition, and "planning for adversity."

Experienced Court Reporters Make Remote Depositions Easy

Conducting depositions remotely is relatively common in legal proceedings if a witness is not within a reasonable driving distance from the court district. Remote depositions have some obvious benefits, including reducing travel, hotel, and related expenses for witnesses and attorneys, saving time that would have been spent in traveling, mitigating environmental impacts, and more.

Female seated at desk with laptop and stenography machine_Experienced court reporter

On the other hand, there are some unique challenges for conducting remote depositions. This is the case for any sort of meeting or event that occurs simultaneously in more than one location. This is where having excellent court reporting — like Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC — can help smooth out those difficulties. If you need court reporting services, call us here at (866) 689-1837. We accept orders via email, phone, and via telefax at (866) 870 – 6032.

The keys to a smooth-running remote deposition are “setting” both locations in advance, coordination during the deposition, and “planning for adversity.”

A Court Reporter Prepares the Room Early.

Excellent court reporters always arrive as early as possible to “set” the room in advance for the remote deposition. This is not always possible, but it is the best practice. Attorneys control the factual and legal aspects of a deposition, but a good court reporter controls the setting to ensure that the questions and answers are accurately recorded and transcribed.

“Setting” the room involves having the stenotype and recording machines ready to begin and having paper, exhibit stickers, and other materials ready for immediate use. For remote depositions, “setting” the room involves accomplishing this at both locations. Generally, your excellent court reporter will arrive at least an hour early and be in quick communication with the staff at the remote location. Video, audio, and computer linkages must be tested and adjusted accordingly. If documents and exhibits have already been provided to the attorneys at the remote location, those should also be made ready. If not, then copies should be sent during the “prep stage,” or plans should be made for sending the documents/exhibits in an efficient and timely fashion as the deposition proceeds.

The Difference of an Experienced Human In The Room.

As the start time approaches, good court reporters also check and test to ensure that the video, audio, and computer connections are working at peak performance — or, at least, working sufficiently to accurately relay the questions and receive the responses.

Where possible, it is often best to have the known deposition exhibits marked/stickered in advance. This is true with any deposition, but this is particularly helpful with remote depositions. This is not strictly necessary, and marking exhibits can be done on an ongoing-in-deposition basis. However, everyone will need to have some patience as that is done. This is part of the coordination aspect of a remote deposition.

Another aspect of coordination is to ensure and test the ability to transmit new documents during the deposition. Inevitably, one of the attorneys will want to mark a new document as an exhibit. Possibly, that new document is not in the hands of the attorneys at the remote location. Thus, there must be a method of efficiently transferring a copy (via electronic transmission or even via facsimile). This might involve the necessity to scan the document; good court reporters are prepared for this.

Finally, excellent court reporting services will have possible solutions for unexpected adversity. These can include problems with the internet linkages, problems with the remote service platform, the inability of parties to sign in and “join” the remote meeting, etc. Good court reporters will have various solutions to these types of unexpected events and will resolve the problems as quickly as possible.

Contact Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting Today For Experienced Reporters.

For more information, call the experienced court reporters at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting. We follow the best practices in order to provide excellent litigation support to our customers. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you.

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Why You Need Depositions Instead of Witness Interviews

Posted on February 15, 2024 in: Court Reporters, Court Reporting, Depositions, Remote Court Reporting, Remote Depo, Remote Deposition, Remote Videotaped Deposition, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Why You Need Depositions Instead of Witness Interviews

Every lawyer knows that witnesses must be contacted and interviewed. But an interview is not enough to properly and thoroughly prepare for trial (at least not for key witnesses). Make no mistake, potential witnesses must be contacted and interviewed. But the main reasons for the interview are to determine if they are a “key” witness and to determine if the testimony of the witness must be taken via a deposition. Interviews are no substitute for depositions.

Why are depositions better than witness interviews?

Why? First, depositions are the best process for “cementing” a witness’s testimony and opinions. An interview is nothing more than that, and interview notes have no use in a trial. You cannot, for example, impeach a witness with interview notes if the witness says something different “on the stand” from what they said during the interview. By contrast, a deposition transcript — prepared by talented court reporters — can be used to impeach a witness. This is largely because, before a deposition begins, the witness must be sworn to tell the truth.

Get to know your witness's personality and presence

Second, an interview does not generally bring an attorney and a witness face-to-face. Typically, interviews are done over the phone. For trial purposes, it is essential to see the face and body language of a witness, which are classic indications of truthfulness and credibility. Further, some witnesses present as “likable” and “serious” or with other qualities that may be positive in front of a jury. Other witnesses will present in the opposite manner. These qualities are important for trial preparation and for how such a witness can be handled during a trial. A witness with a “disagreeable” personality might be given a quick direct examination to obtain their evidence and then sent as quickly as possible out of the courtroom. These qualities might be vaguely perceived during an interview, but can only be truly determined during the process of a deposition.

A Deposition is Practice for Testimony in Court

In a similar manner, a deposition can be seen as a “practice” — maybe a “dress rehearsal” — for the witness’s later testimony presented in front of the jury (or another fact-finder). The practice can help a witness be less nervous during the trial testimony. This is one reason to not be too concerned about presenting your own witnesses for a deposition. The practice can help the witness and show areas for improvement.

A Deposition is a Strategic Advantage

Fourth, because opposing sets of attorneys are present at a deposition (unlike an interview), a deposition allows litigators to test the strength of a witness’s testimony and to glean aspects of the other parties’ trial tactics and strategies. The opposing lawyers will have questions of their own, may focus on certain documents or certain parts of the testimony, or ignore aspects of the case. All of these can provide insights into the trial strategies of the other parties. In asking their questions, the opposing attorneys might demonstrate the strength or weakness of a witness’s testimony in a manner that is usually impossible during an interview.

Contact Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting Today

For more information, call the experienced court reporters at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting. We follow the best practices in order to provide excellent litigation support to our customers. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you.

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