Working freelance court reporters spend 89% of their time reporting depositions and rarely get a chance to be in court and experience reporting a trial.  As court reporters, do you ever wonder why sometimes you need to provide an agency with timestamped transcripts, sometimes not; what happens when the video is synced with your transcript and how it is used in a trial?

Our legal videography department works with attorneys and law firms when they have to go to trial and need support with the technology and presentation of evidence to the trier of fact.

 Many times your deposition transcripts are the star of the show.  With tools such as TrialDirector,  attorneys/paralegals will parse out questions and answers and create “clips” of testimony to play back during opening statements or when witnesses are testifying.

Let’s hypothetically say one of your clients is going to trial.  They videotape a deposition.  A legal video company or court reporting firm will sync the transcript to the video using software that has some voice recognition components to it.  The legal video personnel will grab a txt version of the transcript, have MPEG’ed the video, and then uses the proprietary software to sync the transcript to the video/audio.  If there are gaps in the audio, drops in the transcript, a train goes by distorting the audio, or if you read back a question/answer and only have a parenthetical (Record was read) those portions of the transcript need to be manually sync’ed to the transcript.  A good legal video company will QC the video-transcript to ensure the syncing is perfect.  (Some companies do not QC the final product.) 

There is a cost associated with the MPEG’ing and syncing.  Some attorneys prefer to wait until they know they are going to trial to order the syncing of the transcript to the video.  It can be done at any time in the process.  Other attorneys want everything sync’ed immediately because they can use the sync’ed testimony to send clips to expert witnesses, their clients, or to create a presentation for a mediation.

In the above scenario, a timestamped transcript is not necessary for syncing.

If your client does not want to sync a transcript, he/she may prefer to mark up a hard copy of a transcript and designate portions of the testimony as separate clips by writing on the transcript.  Typically a condensed transcript is used to mark up.  This is when it is imperative to have your transcript with timestamps that correspond with the time on the video monitor at the time of the deposition.  The legal video personnel need to go through the marked-up transcript and video and create clips based on the time.  If they had to go through listening for certain words or phrases, it would take hours and be incredibly frustrating to find testimony in the video.

Bottom line, your transcripts are being scrutinized when they are played back at trial with the video.   If a witness on the stand says, “No, I definitely was not at the hedge fund owner’s home swimming in her pool on May 25^th,”  but in the deposition said, “Well, I might have been in the hedge fund owner’s pool sometime in May,” that clip can be brought up and BANG the witness is shown to be not credible.   A smart attorney can use video clips to zap witnesses who are changing their story at trial to the extent a witness is scared to even answer when the attorney’s hand goes near the computer to start a new clip.    

My goal in writing this blog is to acknowledge how great a court reporter’s talent is.  To write down every word in a legal proceeding and create a transcript that can be played back via video at a trial is like creating magic.  The key to success is to be conscious of our work product and know it is going to be scrutinized.  I wish every court reporter could see a clip or two of one of their transcript in a trial – you would feel incredibly proud.  I know I am proud when I see the clips from the court reporters we work  with up on the big screen in front of a judge and jury – ALL EYES AND ATTENTION FOCUSED ON THE TRANSCRIPT/VIDEO.

Please leave any comments.

@rosaliekramm  (Twitter)

One of our clients two weeks ago asked us if we could provide a court reporter and legal videographer for a deposition in Dalian, China.  I started researching the location and Chinese law regarding taking a deposition in Mainland China. 

The first thing I found out was Dalian is a major city and seaport in south Liaoning Province in Northeast China.  Using Google maps, I also learned that Dalian is over 500 miles from Shanghai.  Shanghai has the nearest videoconference facility available for public use. 

Upon further investigation I found out that traditionally, Chinese authorities do NOT recognize the authority or ability of foreign persons, such as American attorneys, to take voluntary depositions of willing witnesses, even before a U.S. consular officer, Article 27(1) of the U.S. – China Consular Convention of 1980 notwithstanding.  The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, reports that the United States is seeking a clarification from the People’s Republic of China regarding its recognition of the right of U.S. Consular Officers to take voluntary depositions of U.S. citizens in China.

The State Department provides the following:  “Taking evidence in China for use in foreign courts is problematic.  China does not recognize the right of persons to take depositions, and any effort to do so could result in the detention and/or arrest of U.S. citizen participants. “

Upon discovering the consequences of swearing someone in to give testimony, I advised my clients that everyone would be at risk involved in the deposition, my court reporter, my videographer, and the attorneys themselves.  I would never want to see anyone thrown into a Chinese jail because of attempting to take a deposition.

Solution:  Videoconferencing.  We have set up the deposition to have the American participants attend the deposition at our conference center in San Diego and have the witness in Shanghai.  We will suggest to the attorneys they not ask the court reporter to “swear” the witness in, because that could potentially put the witness at risk.  The State Department suggests that attorneys fly the witness to a country that doesn’t have the laws/restrictions such as China does.

The world is getting smaller all of the time as businesses go global.  Kramm Court Reporting is always looking for ways to use technology to save attorneys money, time, and still get the job done.  More importantly we protect our court reporters and legal videographers – certainly never wanting to break the laws of China (and ending up in jail).

Please leave any comments.  Your comments are valuable to all of our readers.

@rosaliekramm Twitter

One of the court reporters I have the pleasure of working with, Veronica Thompson, wants to have as little as possible to carry to depositions and arbitrations  She now arrives at depositions carrying a little black backpack and no case.  When she arrives at a law office announcing “I’m the court reporter,” the receptionist/attorneys get scared and inevitably ask, “Where is your stuff?  We have a deposition!”  Veronica smiles, turns, and shows them her backpack.

Veronica uses a little Sony Vaio netbook/computer to run her CAT software on with a 2MB hard drive.  Her steno machine is a red LightSpeed from Stenovations.

Veronica uses Stenocast as her preferred output for realtime.  With a multi-USB hub, she can send out a realtime feed to Stenocast, has a back-up thumb drive for saving files, and her CAT software key. 

I know of two other court reporters in California using netbooks to run their CAT software. 

Upon interviewing Veronica, I learned that her disciplined practice is at the end of every job, she copies to a thumb drive the transcript, her LightSpeed dictionary, her main dictionary, and her job dictionary.  She goes home and uploads the transcript and dictionary to her large computer for editing.  Once she is done editing any job (or during the editing process) before turning off her large computer, she once again is disciplined enough to copy her edited transcript, her main dictionary, and her job dictionary to the thumb drive.  Then when she opens up her deposition netbook/computer she inputs the changes.  This procedure takes incredible discipline.  Veronica believes (and so do I) if a person skips a step, you will start forgetting what you have done and haven’t done which can be very dangerous.

One thing I love about court reporters is they are innovative, technical professionals.  Having the desire to be the best, have the best equipment, and be efficient will take anyone a long way.  Veronica is always pushing the technology perimeter.  (One day I might write about how she edits with her feet so she can hold her cat while she scopes/proofs.)

Please leave any comments.  The court reporting world wants to hear from you.

@rosaliekramm (Twitter)