The Post-Deposition Email
Four hours into a contentious deposition, both counsel huddle at the table and agree among themselves to 'go off the record.' No stipulation is stated aloud and nothing is said about the reporter's presence. The sidebar lasts nine minutes. Two days later, defense counsel emails you a list: delete the sidebar; delete 'um,' 'you know,' and 'like'; fix the deponent's grammar; convert one of your question marks to a period because counsel's question 'reads as badgering'; deliver in twenty-four hours at your standard ten-day rate; and destroy your steno notes because the transcript is now the official record. The same email notes that plaintiff's counsel's firm is two invoices behind and asks whether you can 'hold their copies' until they pay.
1. Respond to each request in the email. State what you will and will not do, and why.
Read the worked answer
Delete the sidebar - no, not silently. An off-the-record agreement is effective when the parties make it, but I will not alter a record on one party's unilateral instruction. What I will do is note the occurrence and ask both counsel to confirm in writing that the nine minutes were off the record and are to be excluded; with that, or with a stipulation read into the record, the material is excluded and the transcript is clean. If counsel disagree, the dispute is for the judge, not for me.
Remove fillers and fix grammar - no. That is the verbatim rule. Fillers and non-standard grammar are what the witness said, and in a contentious case they are frequently what the cross-examination is about.
Change a question mark to a period - no. Punctuation follows the delivery. If it was asked as a question, it is punctuated as one. I will not edit punctuation to change how counsel's conduct reads.
Twenty-four-hour delivery at the standard rate - no. Rush is a service with a separate price; I will quote it, in writing, and deliver on the expedited timeline if accepted.
Destroy the notes - no. See below.
All of this goes in one calm written reply, with the reasons stated once and no editorializing.
2. Counsel demands you destroy your steno notes because 'the transcript is the official record.' How do you handle retention?
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The notes are the evidence that the transcript is accurate, so destroying them destroys the only means of testing the product.
- Retention is jurisdiction-dependent. Most jurisdictions set a retention period tied to the appeal window or a fixed term; where a rule exists, it governs and can be cited back to counsel. Where no rule exists, follow your firm's written retention policy and the prevailing practice in your courts.
- The appeal window drives the clock, not the delivery date. An appeal may be noticed months after the transcript is certified, and a challenge to the transcript is precisely when the notes matter.
- What I can offer instead of destruction: a written retention commitment with a stated destruction date, so counsel knows the notes are not indefinite. That usually resolves the request.
- Refuse in writing, once, and copy the file. A demand to destroy the underlying record is not a routine client preference, and the written refusal is the reporter's protection.
- Never destroy notes to satisfy a party, and never destroy them while any dispute about the transcript is open.
3. Plaintiff's counsel is two invoices behind. May you withhold their copies of this transcript?
Read the worked answer
Careful - there are two different questions here and conflating them is how reporters get into trouble.
- This transcript versus the old debt. Withholding a completed transcript from the party who ordered and owes for it is ordinarily permissible; withholding it as leverage for an unrelated delinquent invoice is not. Do not set off an old debt against a new order.
- One party's copies versus another's. Defense counsel is asking you to hold plaintiff's copies. You cannot. Each party's entitlement to the transcript runs to that party; you may not use one litigant's bill as pressure on another, and doing so can expose you to a motion and to the appearance of partisanship - the one thing a reporter cannot afford.
- Who ordered it matters. If defense ordered and paid for the original, defense controls that copy; plaintiff's copies are a separate order and a separate account.
- Practical answer to defense counsel: 'I handle delinquent accounts directly with the firm concerned and do not discuss them with other parties.' Then pursue the debt directly, in writing, with the terms of your engagement letter.
- Check your state's rules on lien claims against transcripts; some jurisdictions restrict them sharply.