Tag: litigators

A lower court imposed sanctions on a lawyer who filed lengthy and frivolous filings in a dispute with his brother. The Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the sanctions for the Florida-based bankruptcy attorney. The pleadings, according to reports, were riddled with exclamation points, rants, and at one point even quoted Bugs Bunny.

The Case

In its December 15 unpublished per curiam opinion, the appellate court placed sanctions on the man. The behavior by the bankruptcy attorney included comments during a deposition telling opposing counsel to “shush, shush, shush” as well as frivolous filings, one of which included a haiku in a motion seeking reconsideration of a court ruling. The bankruptcy attorney further quoted Looney Tunes character Bugs Bunny when arguing that the sanctions motion against him was lacking specific allegations.

According to the opinion, the sanctions started from the attorney’s self-representation in litigation that began with a probate case and then moved into bankruptcy court. Initially appointed as the personal representative of his mother’s estate, the attorney was then removed by the court based on his brother’s request due to filing for bankruptcy and listing the brother as holding a non-priority unsecured claim. The brother, on the other hand, alleged that the debt was a result of the attorney converting the estate property for personal use and, therefore, was not dischargeable in bankruptcy court. The attorney claimed the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction; in response, his brother filed for sanctions.

Monetary Fines

At a sanction hearing, the bankruptcy court ordered the attorney to pay his brother nearly $3,000 in attorney’s fees. After attending a hearing on the underlying bankruptcy case, the brother again filed for sanctions. Ruling on the merits of the case, the bankruptcy court held that the attorney acted in bad faith throughout the litigation, awarding the brother nearly $10,000 in costs. According to the bankruptcy court, the attorney suffocated the docked with frivolous and unnecessarily long pleadings as well as asked repetitive and rude questions in depositions. The court further noted the attorney was wrong when he claimed the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction over his brother’s claim.

A district court noted that the bankruptcy court lacked authority to impose sanctions and, therefore, interpreted its order as a recommendation imposing the same sanctions. The attorney appealed. Not only did the 11th Circuit uphold the lower court’s sanctions, but placed additional sanctions of almost $3,500 for expenses incurred by the attorney’s brother for the appeal justifying its decision on the attorney’s baseless arguments, according to an article by Law360.

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Technology has made things possible that people could never have envisoned 20 years ago.  At the rate it’s advancing, things that seem like they are cutting-edge now will be as obsolete as the typewriter in a short amount of time.  With regards to court reporters, technological innovations have changed the way that we do our work for our clients in just about every way imaginable.  We can now store and deliver our product electronically.  We can add functionality to it that makes it easy to use when these transcripts need to be studied and analyzed.  We can do just about anything we want at this point, all of which makes our service better.

One of the most central components of this advancement is video technology.  Videoconferencing is something that the court reporters at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC, have immediately embraced, as it simply makes managing cases for litigators and their staffs that much easier and less expensive.  In our continuing quest to add to our offerings that are being driven by technology, our team is now able to provide something truly remarkable to our clients.  This tool is known as video transcript syncing.  We’ll explain how it works below.

Video Transcript Syncing Described

Litigators understand that back in the pre-technology days, many hours were spent poring over paper transcripts in an effort to find the passage that was needed for review.  Those days largely ended when electronic transcripts became the norm.  More recently, video transcripts of testimony became available, and this added another dimension to the analysis of testimony by way of the ability to actually see how a witness answered a question or questions.  Now we can manage these video transcripts much like we can electronic, written transcripts, but you have to work with Georgia court reporters who have incorporated this capability into their service.

Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC and DepoView

DepoView has partnered with our firm to provide video transcript syncing, and that means that people who use this tool can now do the following:

• Search testimony with keywords and watch the screen jump to that portion of the testimony
• Cut specific video clips from the testimony and save them
• Export clips to a PowerPoint presentation
• Email video clips
• Edit clips to within one-tenth of a second

These are just a few examples of what can be done.  In addition, people who download the DepoView app can do all of this from their iPad, and downloading the app is free.  It’s just that easy – you can manage your transcripts anywhere and at any time and with all of the capabilities of an experienced video editor.

As Georgia court reporters, we owe it to our clients to work tirelessly to provide them with every advantage possible.  Our new video transcript syncing capabilities are just the latest example of how we continue to look forward.  If you’d like to know more about how we can help you, contact Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC, today for prompt answers to your questions.

Technology is here to stay, and people from all walks of life face the choice of either acknowledging this reality or running from it.  Some even choose to embrace the presence of technology, as it will make life easier if it’s used properly.  When it comes to the role of court reporters in a litigation setting, technology can be extremely useful for everyone involved in a case.  While there is no way to successfully remove the human element from court reporting, technology can speed the process and make records available almost instantaneously.  Everyone involved with any type of case sees the same instantaneous benefit from real-time court reporting.

What Is Real-Time Court Reporting?

Real-time court reporting involves the use of devices that can help to transcribe a court reporter’s shorthand notes into readable text within seconds.  Making this happen often involves the use of traditional court reporter stenotypes.  A laptop or some other device is nearby, and software that is integrated into the system can translate shorthand notes into a verbatim record of what was said.  When this is done, the newly-transcribed record can appear on screens for people to see and review instantly.  These screens can be located in a courtroom or even in some remote location.  This process combines the skill and experience of a court reporter with the capabilities of software.

Advantages of Real-Time Court Reporting

There are several advantages to using real-time court reporting.  For instance, litigators can not only see what is being transcribed in real time and therefore avoid the need to take notes, but many systems allow for interaction.  This interactive capability allows attorneys to annotate and highlight certain pieces of testimony that they may want to review with a subsequent witness.  At the end of the day in court, the attorneys can review that day’s record and prepare for the rest of the proceeding without having to wait for transcripts to be ready.

Why Do Some Court Reporting Firms Incorporate Real-Time Capabilities?

As is seemingly always the case with technology, offering litigators the opportunity to make use of real-time court reporting requires capital investment, training and specialization.  Some court reporting firms simply are not in a position to make this commitment.  As such, attorneys who need to hire court reporters for a trial, a deposition or any other type of proceeding will need to ask the court reporting firm if this type of production is available.

The Atlanta court reporters at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC do offer real-time court reporting services.  We have always believed that technology should be used to make everyone’s job easier, and we have also long believed that these investments ultimately allow our clients to spend less on our services.  If you would like to learn more about how we can help you in this manner, contact the team at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC today to learn more about how we can help you improve your ability to represent your clients.

When a litigator needs to review the transcript of a deposition, hearing or trial in order to be prepared for a subsequent proceeding, that attorney has traditionally faced a difficult choice.  He or she can either spend hours upon hours poring over a paper transcript looking for useful answers or that attorney can ask staff such as a paralegal or a clerk to do the same.  The first option sucks up a lot of time that could be spent doing other things to prepare and the second option leaves open the possibility that something might be missed during the review.  No one looks forward to reviewing transcripts, but it is a necessary task for obvious reasons.

The Georgia court reporters at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC have been working with litigators for several years, and we listen when they tell us about what they dislike.  We are not techies in the sense that we can come up with some new tool that eliminates all of this pain, but we make sure that we pay close attention to those who can.  Based on a recent article that appeared on the American Bar Association Web site, it seems that there are tools that could help to put the drudgery of reviewing paper transcripts for hours in the past.

A link to that article can be found here, and our team at Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC is excited to see some of these developments.  We are particularly interested in the ability to make use of tablet PDF readers.  Taking this step could completely change the way that litigators review depositions and other types of transcripts, and this capability even allows for direct links to exhibits and the word index.  With the search functionality already a part of many of these packages, time is saved and answers are quickly found.

Elizabeth Gallo Court Reporting, LLC is already jumping into the technology world in as many ways as possible.  We are engaging with a software company that will allow us to convert all of our transcripts to the PDF format.  Doing so will allow our transcripts to obtain compatibility with apps, readers and other functionality that will make the jobs of litigators easier by simply saving them a ton of time.  We’re going to keep taking these types of steps whenever possible.

We’ll keep you posted on some of the new things that are coming about that will make the entire legal process easier to manage, but this is one step that we are excited to take.