Depositions Flashcards
What Federal Rule of Civil Procedure tells you the basic rules about taking depositions?
FCRP 30, especially 30(b)(6)
FCRP30(b)(6) is a helpful rule that let’s you depose this type of person
Entities such as businesses and governments
80% of depositions is fact-gathering. The final 20% is about eliciting ____
Your witness to say certain things or stick to certain positions that helps your case
Unlike an opposing party, what do you need to file to get a non-party to testify?
A subpoena
What is the great final question Brent suggests to use to finish a topic within a deposition?
“Have you told me everything you know about this topic?”
What is recapiulation?
Summarizing the preceding information, worded in the way you want to cut it out from a transcript.
You should bring at least __ copies of exhibit documents. For who?
3 copies.
- one for yourself
- one for the court reporter which will be marked as the exhibit
- one for the opposing counsel
What is the specific language from FRE 901(a) on what the proponent must show to authenticate a document
“evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is.”
When tailoring a deposition towards a summary judgment, you may want to organize questions based on ____
The elements of a claim
What kind of objection leads to a lawyer telling witnesses not to answer.
Privilege claims
What is the first thing you should say to a witness when you are preparing them?
Explain the scope of your representation. You are the agency’s lawyer, not the agency employee’s specific lawyer
Once the testimony starts, a lawyer and witness can no longer discuss ___
the substance of the case
Advice for witnesses: “never ___, never ____”
Never lie. Never guess.
FRE 30(c)(2) requires that an objection have these 3 adjectives
“concise,” “nonargumentative,” and “nonsuggestive”
Define a speaking objection
An object that instructs the witness how to answer the question
If you are asking a witness and opposing counsel objects, what are your 2 options?
(1) rephrase the question OR (2) tell them they can still answer (except privilege)
Hearsay, Opinions, Foundation, Leading – these are all improper objections to make in a deposition. Why?
These objections all speak to the admissibility of the information. But the goal of a deposition is to uncover information that could lead to admissible information, but the deposition itself does not necessarily need to be admissible
If the court reporter is in a different state than the witness, what stipulation is needed between you and the opposing counsel?
Stipulate that both sides agree the witness’s Oath is valid
After depositions, your witness will be asked to take this action
Read through transcript for minor corrections and then sign the transcript
