The Off-Record Segment, the Synced Transcript, and the Request to Delete Twelve Minutes
A personal-injury deposition runs six and a half hours across two days. Exhibits 1–4 are marked on day one, exhibit 5 on day two. Day two opens with a stipulation that a 40-minute discussion of a discovery dispute is "not part of the record," which you nevertheless recorded because the parties did not ask you to stop. The transcript arrives three weeks later. The noticing attorney then asks for four things: a certified copy of the video, a version synced to the transcript, three short clips of key admissions for a mediation presentation, and deletion of the off-record 40 minutes from the delivered file - because, he says, "it isn't part of the record and it makes my client look bad."
1. What do you deliver, in what form, and what documentation accompanies it?
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Deliver a package, not a file.
- Preserve the master untouched. Original cards or files stay write-protected and unedited; compute and record a hash value at ingest, and store a second copy offline.
- Work from copies. Every derivative is made from a duplicate, never from the master.
- Provide an index/log: date, location, parties present, operator, equipment and serial numbers, recording format and settings, start and stop times, reel or file boundaries, breaks, stipulations, objections noted in the room, and timecode markers for exhibits 1–5 and for the 40-minute segment.
- Certification: the wording and authority for a "certified copy" come from the applicable procedure and the officer's rules in your jurisdiction; a videographer attests to the accuracy and authenticity of the recording, not to the truth of testimony. Do not invent certification language - confirm it with the officer or your state's requirements.
- Synced transcript: a burned-in or embedded timecode reference, or a page/line-to-timecode index, produced so that page 1 of the transcript maps to a known timecode on the recording.
Deliverables without a log are much harder to defend a year later.
2. How do you respond to the request to delete the recorded off-record segment?
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You cannot delete from the original, and you should say so plainly and in writing.
Reasoning:
- The parties stipulated the discussion was not part of the record; that is a statement about what the transcript will contain, not an instruction to destroy a recording. If they wanted no recording, they needed to say so at the time - and you should note that this was not requested.
- Selective destruction by the party who hired you is the single worst appearance problem in this work. What is deleted, and for whom, is a question for the parties and ultimately the court.
- What you can do: produce the deliverable the parties agree on, with any excluded segment clearly labeled on the index and, if all counsel stipulate in writing, omit it from the presentation copy - while retaining the untouched master and disclosing that it exists.
- If a party wants redaction, get it in writing, signed by all counsel, and note that you are retaining the original.
Preservation costs nothing; spoliation cannot be undone.
3. The attorney wants three short clips for a mediation presentation. What must the clips contain and how must they be produced?
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Clips are the most likely product to be characterized as misleading, so build in the guardrails.
- Source integrity: cut from the verified work copy, with the master's timecode retained in metadata, so any clip can be traced to its origin.
- Context: start and end on natural boundaries (a complete question and answer), not mid-sentence, so the excerpt does not create an admission that was never made.
- Identification: slate each clip with deponent name, date, page/line range, and timecode, and label the set as excerpts from a longer recording.
- Transitions: hard cuts, no dissolves, no music, no captions that editorialize; burned-in transcript text only if stipulated or requested and clearly marked as an aid.
- Written index of what was excerpted and what surrounds each excerpt.
If opposing counsel will see the clips in mediation, offer the same set to both sides. Even-handedness here is cheap insurance against a later claim that you produced a one-sided edit of your own client's record.