Deposition Reporters and the Discovery Process

Before attorneys in the U.S. begin arguing a court case, they rely on deposition reporters to gather statements from witnesses that support and strengthen the case. Depositions offer a variety of practical benefits to court proceedings. For one, they can reduce the time that a case spends in court by allowing attorneys to begin their cases from a formal standpoint. For another, they allow attorneys to insure that witness' testimony remains consistent by providing a basis of truth. Yet another benefit of court depositions is that they allow attorneys to review the criteria that a case is founded on without having to wade through court transcripts that can soon become voluminous. Deposition reporters create depositions during the discovery phase of a court proceeding by applying certain methods of discovery.

Numerous laws govern the discovery process, establishing what kind of information an attorney is privy to and what methods can be used to extract it. One commonly used method of discovery is known as an interrogatory. Attorneys send interrogatories to those who have information that may strengthen a case as well as to those who have information that may weaken a case. While responding to an interrogatory does not place a person under oath, respondents can still be charged with perjury if they respond untruthfully to the questions that an interrogatory poses.

While films and television dramas that focus on the legal process often make it seem that attorneys have never spoken to witnesses prior to their entering the courtroom, interrogatories establish a relationship between attorneys and witnesses in order that attorneys might anticipate witness testimony and prepare responses that further elucidate or challenge the testimony. In addition to providing witnesses with interrogatories, attorneys also interview witnesses and video record the interviews. At the conclusion of the interview, attorneys have a deposition reporter create an interview transcript for the purpose of challenging a witness who alters his or her testimony or encouraging a friendly witness to remember testimony. Depositions can also be used in place of witness testimony if a witness cannot be present.

Because deposition reporting is just as crucial legal cases as in court reporting, retaining the best deposition reporters can be key to the life of a case. The ideal deposition reporter is one who exhibits impartiality to witness testimony, refrains from poor personal habits like gossip and dramatic emotional responses and possesses proficiency in the form of depositing reporting than an attorney desires. Because attorneys rarely have time to screen deposition reporters on their own, they commonly turn to independent litigation services providers that put their reporters through a refined screening process to determine whether reporters possess subtle, yet detrimental qualities like the ones mentioned above.