Quote, Unquote, and a Witness Who Won't Be Fixed

One defensible rendering:

Q. Did you tell the adjuster, 'I ain't signing nothing'? A. I told him I ain't signing nothing. Q. And did he respond- A. He said, 'Take it or leave it,' and walked out.

Reasoning:

• Spoken 'quote/unquote' becomes quotation marks, not the literal words, when the speaker is marking reported speech. Whichever convention your transcript uses, it must be applied the same way throughout all 212 pages - a mixed transcript is worse than either choice.
• 'Ain't' and 'nothing' stay as spoken. Double negatives and nonstandard verbs are evidence of what the witness said, and the jury is entitled to see it.
• The question mark goes outside the closing quote in the first question under the predominant American convention, because the quoted material is a fragment embedded in the reporter's question rather than a complete quoted sentence.
• The em dash marks the interruption. Counsel never finished the question, so there is no question mark. Do not supply words the attorney did not say.
• The comma before the second quotation separates the speech tag from the quoted material.

Leave both exactly as spoken. The reporter's task in question-and-answer testimony is to reproduce the words, not to improve them.

Two refinements:

• Do not sprinkle [sic] through the transcript. It is an editorial comment by the reporter on the witness's speech, it is not part of the utterance, and many jurisdictions and style guides discourage or forbid it in verbatim Q&A. If your transcript's own style manual permits it, apply it consistently or not at all.
• Check the speaker. If the words 'he had went' appear in counsel's question rather than the witness's answer, the same verbatim rule applies, but the reader will infer a different thing about the speaker. Confirm attribution before you decide the line is fine as is.

The one thing you may correct without changing meaning is a pure transcription artifact - a dropped word caused by the writer or a homophone your software produced - provided the audio confirms what was actually said. Grammar is not an artifact.

Distinguish the request from the product. You cannot deliver a certified transcript that alters the witness's grammar, because the certificate attests that the transcript is a true record.

A practical response:

1. Explain the constraint once, in writing, with the certification language and the reason verbatim Q&A exists - counsel will be ceding an argument at trial if the transcript is sanitized and the audio is played.
2. Offer legitimate alternatives. Counsel may prepare their own edited excerpt or summary for illustrative use, clearly labeled as such and not bearing your certificate. Some firms want a 'reading copy' for internal use; that is fine if it is not presented as the record.
3. Ask whether the underlying problem is readability rather than grammar - dense pages, unclear speaker attribution, missing exhibit references. Those you can fix within the rules, and they are often the actual complaint behind a request like this.
4. Document the request and your response in the job file. If the pressure continues, that record protects you and is the right thing to have if the transcript is later challenged.