Halloween is fast approaching, meaning zany costumes, yummy treats, Linus awaiting the Great Pumpkin, and horror stories! All attorneys, paralegals, and court reporters have a few of these. Read on for some humorous horror stories from the deposition room!
In the not-too-distant past, Planet Depos’ reporter and videographer from Japan arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, ready to cover the deposition. The attorneys had hired their own Mandarin interpreter from Taiwan. As he wasn’t a resident of Japan, he needed a deposition visa; he didn’t have one, and was denied entry to the Embassy, leaving them without an interpreter. Fortunately, the story doesn’t end here and turns out not to be so terrifying after all. The reporter and videographer managed to locate a Mandarin interpreter who was a Japanese resident (no deposition visa needed!) and arrived to cover the deposition, though the proceedings were delayed by a few hours.
The same reporter who was at the Embassy for the interpreter debacle related above encountered a different kind of horror at a hearing involving an economist. This Ph.D. witness repeatedly used the term “heteroscedasticity,” a circumstance in which the variability of a variable is unequal across the range of values of a second variable that predicts it — for any of you who might not know this off the top of your head. The reporter actually broke her poker face, to the amusement of the attorneys present, whom she could hear giggling at her confused expression.
Lastly, we have a cautionary tale courtesy of an attorney friend of mine down in Louisville, KY. Her office received both an electronic and hard copy of a transcript from a small local court reporting agency. The transcript was produced with incorrect line numbers… in the hard copy only. This is spooky enough, but it gets worse. The law firm didn’t catch the discrepancy and cited in their motion the electronic copy which had the correct line numbers. Opposing Counsel filed a motion pointing out the citations made no sense, which was true, based on the hard copy. Needless to say, the judge was exasperated by the whole ordeal and, unfortunately, my friend’s firm lost the motion. The moral to the story here is to schedule coverage with a best-in-class court reporting agency and avoid these kinds of bizarre mishaps.
The best-in-class reporting agency makes the scheduling process a snap, ensures that a professional, prompt reporter and qualified videographer cover your proceedings and deliver an accurate transcript and high-definition video on time. They can reserve the location on your behalf, take the hassle out of confidential portions, assist with exhibits, international travel requirements, and more. This is the agency that goes the extra mile to eliminate scary surprises!
For more information or to schedule with Planet Depos, call 888.433.3767 or email schedulenow@planetdepos.com or international@planetdepos.com to reserve coverage.
