When you are a party in civil litigation (you are suing or being sued), it is common to receive a subpoena for your deposition. This means your opponent is on a “fishing expedition” to find out everything you know about the issues involved in the case. This process is done before a court reporter and you are asked all sorts of questions. Depositions are different than testimony at trial since the opposing counsel can ask a much broader scope of questions at a deposition if they might lead to admissible evidence.1 Keep in mind that your deposition testimony can significantly ... Read More
Tag: court reporter
03
Oct2018
16
Nov2017
One of the key ways to obtain information in litigation is by depositions. In the most common scenario, these are depositions of the parties. Essentially, a court reporter and the attorneys and the litigants meet at one of the attorney’s offices or the office of the court reporter, the witness/party is sworn under oath, and questions are asked by the deposing attorney. There are many aspects of depositions. This blog explores the five common mistakes in answering and the proper ways to answer deposition questions.
Personal knowledge. In everyday life, we all answer questions in normal human discourse by stating as ... Read More
18
Jun2015
Depositions of parties and third persons is common in litigation. In court a deposition may be used to impeach one’s credibility if they change their story or if they are unavailable for trial testimony. That said deponents sometimes do not know whether they should review their deposition and why. Generally, reviewing your deposition and having the chance to note mistakes is important.
What should you look for?
First, are all of the facts you relayed correctly stated in your deposition. Did you misunderstand a question or give an answer that is not recorded correctly in the deposition because, for instance, you had ... Read More
24
Sep2013
A recent blog discussed how an appellant (person initiating an appeal) gathers documents from the lower court hearing being appealed in an appendix to provide the Court of Appeals with the relevant information litigated to give a background into the matter. Additionally, the appellant will order a transcript of the lower court hearings for review by the parties and the Court of Appeals.
A transcript is a verbatim written recording of the events of the trial court. If a hearing went on for multiple days with multiple witnesses, all of that testimony will be delineated exactly in the transcript. If a ... Read More
05
Feb2013
Appeals can be sought when a Court has issued its final order and/or when a decision has been certified for interlocutory appeal. The nuances of when an appeal can be filed and what types of orders can be appealed have been explored in previous blog posts.
Once an appeal is filed and the process has concluded, there may still be a pending issue-namely, appellate costs. These are separate from attorney fees. To recover attorney fees, a party must show that the appeal was frivolous or brought in bad fait1. However, the burden and process to recover costs is a different one ... Read More
10
Apr2012
When a case has begun, there is a level of information gathering that must be done before trial. Oftentimes, it is this information that can lead to the information which will allow for a settlement or agreement between the parties or that is the basis for trial.
Either way, this information gathering, called discovery, is an opportunity for the attorneys on a case to request and evaluate information. Often, interrogatories and requests for production are used. These means allow for the attorneys to send written questions and requests to the other party and sometimes, third parties.
For example, an interrogatory might be: ... Read More