Deposition is an inevitable part of an investigative process that takes place before a trial. It is the procedure to gather information by an attorney for the case. A deponent is questioned, who provides information through their account of events, testimony as an expert, etc. The deponent placed under oath is asked a series of questions by the attorney and also cross examined by opposition attorney. A deposition is a witness’s sworn testimony, used to gather information as part of the discovery process and to be further used at trial.
A deposition allows both parties to know what changes may be made in a future trial. This legal procedure includes recording of the witnesses under oath and is a formal statement from the witness who is standing by their statement whether they are there or not for the actual trial. A lot of time and effort is consumed during a deposition and sometimes can take weeks to get just one page complete. This is because it includes such critical information to the trial and anything that is decided in the future. Instead of going through all the details of documents during a trial, there is a deposition summary that has excerpts of the critical parts of the transcript to make the process faster as well as efficient.
Courts are already running burdened with cases with the depositions stretching up to hundreds of pages. Hence, deposition summaries stand as a crucial document for preparing a trial, ensuring a simpler way the attorneys could gain access to the necessary information in a hassle-free manner and in a much lesser time. A summary without a spot of error is the one which summarizes the testimony after an intensive contract review, and extensive analysis by a group of professionals.
The primary challenge faced by majority of law firms is the complexity of documents and the enormously lengthy resources. All the facts and important details that the witness knows about the case, goes into deposition, thereby considering its importance in a case it is well versed that the summarization of a deposition cannot be vaguely done. Hence, outsourcing deposition summarization to professionals helps free up the time of in-house attorneys aiding them to utilize these hours for preparation of trail and other strategic tasks. The increasing trend among litigators is to outsource deposition summaries. With a trial date looming, it is imperative that everyone on the staff assigned to a case be working effectively. Completing legal documents can be exhausting and tedious work, and an in-house paralegal with multiple responsibilities can become fidgety and agitated with mundane labour. However, a concise, well-articulated summary can be an attorney’s most valuable tool.
The deposition service providers, provide a tailored summary for the complete deposition recorded and send in a desired format as per client’s requirements. Custom summary reports not just make it easy to read but also refer during the trial or reference for discussing case strategies saving time and effort throughout the process. Depositions being the most critical elements of any litigated case and a vital tool in litigation, which provides the opportunity to understand more about witnesses and what they may testify during the trial, needs utmost focus and care while preparing it, outsourced service providers excel better in summarisation as unlike the in-house attorney who are entangled in other case related jobs at hand.
Deposition summary services must beprovided by skilled, trained professionals who understand and have experience in the areas of law that covers the legal matter. When a client provides deposition testimony, the deposition summary team must act solely and promptly to review and filter out the key points into a summary document. Those summaries must then be proofread and checked for quality and consistency, which is not a possibility if done in-house. Time is of the essence in litigation matters, taking the help of professionals gets the work done quickly to provide deposition summaries in the preferred format subject to confidentiality being maintained.
Outsourcing firms, use technologies to create and analyse the deposition transcript and extractimportant information. This cuts huge time and enables the attorneys to get the summarized version within 24–48 hours. Even though some attorneys find it difficult to use the technology and costly to invest in them, many professionals, bigger and medium sized firms have benefited saving huge on expenses. When it comes to outsourcing most of the outsourcing firms ensure confidentiality of the legal data.
