Realtime court reporting fosters a highly productive environment within depositions and courtrooms. Having an instant transcript of the proceedings allows all participants to be more thorough in their questioning, an effective means of tracking and notating the deposition, a tool for staying focused and positing focused questions, and keeping witnesses on track with focused answers and less distracting tangents. A realtime feed cuts back on time by reducing readbacks and allows everyone involved to participate in the courtroom or deposition more effectively regardless of location. In this article we quickly highlight the best features realtime court reporting offers that make any deposition or court proceeding more productive.
Question More Effectively, Plus Accurate Notating
This simple yet effective use of realtime court reporting helps you (an attorney) get all of his/her boxes checked and questions answered before passing the witness. A really simple and quick glance over the instant transcript allows you to double check and confirm that a series of questions and answers has been addressed and portrays what you intend to establish with a particular witness. This gives you an increased level of control over your questioning and ensures that everything on your checklist is covered before moving on.
Using realtime court reporting saves you time and frustration. Most disputed points can be easily reconciled once seen in written form. Additionally, when a readback is requested by the jury, court and counsel can use the realtime feed to find and agree on exactly which portion of the transcript should be read to the jury.
Additionally, realtime court reporting provides the courtroom deputy clerk an opportunity to be connected to the court reporter's realtime feed, allowing him/her to copy and paste more accurate relevant information to the minutes. The judge's law clerk or judicial assistant can use the realtime feed to assist the judge in responding to motions made during the trial and compiling jury instructions.
The Answer To Long Trials, Attention Disorders and Hearing Impairments
Many trials can go on for weeks or months, leading to fatigue and lost focus between proceedings. Real-time reporting makes it easy to immediately pick up where the proceedings left off. This allows for faster review before a session and can bring everyone up to speed whether the break has lasted an hour or several days.
Witnesses, parties, judges and/or attorneys who are hearing impaired or diagnosed with attention deficit disorder can benefit from reading all words spoken exactly as stated rather than having to rely on sound alike words, lip reading, or paraphrasing by a sign language interpreter. Instead of stopping the proceedings and waiting for the court reporter to read back, you can immediately return to the last question asked and regain your train of thought with a simple keystroke.
Less Time Spent On Readbacks
It’s not uncommon for a witness to respond to a question with an unfocused, long-winded story which has little to do with the question asked. Having the realtime transcription immediately available allows you to repeat the exact question without having the reporter readback. Additionally, you/the attorney can easily break down and go through the long answer paragraph by paragraph for further clarification.
An opposing attorney may object to a question based on the manner in which it was asked. Realtime reporting allows an attorney to look at the text of the question before rephrasing, allowing him/her to keep the important points of the question once rephrased.
Rather than stopping the proceedings for the court reporter to read back, the court or counsel can easily click on the dynamic index associated with the realtime feed and quickly search for objections, rulings, exhibits, words, and phrases. Following an objection/ruling or being asked to repeat my question you have the exact words of my question in front of me. to be able to carefully reframe the exact same question and get the answer you need. If you am forced to rephrase, you can use the question appearing on the laptop to make a subtle change to remedy the objectionable portion of the question.
Realtime Court Reporting Empowers Your Team
Realtime court reporting gives everyone on your legal team access to the same written testimony as it is spoken. Having everyone on the same page - so to speak - gives all participants the power to make notations, highlight passages, and flag portions of testimony for further examination on their own devices, and coordinate with one another giving the entire legal team control over the case.
Even better, the ability to stream the realtime transcript anywhere in the world via a direct internet hookup allows remote attorneys to impeach live testimony, communicate with local attorneys, and participate effectively in the proceeding and potentially eliminate the need for a second deposition.
Realtime court reporting allows you to effectively streamline communication and efficiency for any legal proceeding from depositions, courtrooms, and even corporate meetings. With Discovery Litigation Services’ realtime ready court reporters you can enjoy the time and money saving benefits while ensuring a high level of productivity. We all have the same amount of time in a day, but with the implementation of the right tools, you can maximize that time to get more done. Learn more about Discovery Litigation Services here.
