5 Reasons Why You Should Outsource a Legal Depo Summary

Legal deposition summaries are also known as testimonies or statements. These are obtained by interviewing witnesses or deponents.

Should the writing of these summaries be outsourced?

How a Legal Translation Company Can Help in the Process of Legal Deposition?

During a legal deposition, a witness will be giving testimony. That testimony will be transcribed and if the witness speaks another language, then getting help from a translation company that provides legal translation might be needed. It can’t be just any company though. The translation has to be accurate and true to what was said during the deposition.

What makes Tomedes’ process standout is that, on top of pairing translators with jobs based on their language abilities, their relevant experience is also considered. For legal documents, translators with legal backgrounds are chosen.

Other top companies when it comes to legal translation include RWS, Lionbridge, and TransPerfect. They all have processes in place for legal document translation.

Once the output has been received from the translators, then the transcript is then ready to be summarised.

Depo Summary 101

Deposition summaries provide the most important points of legal depositions. These summaries are very useful to lawyers handling cases. The summary is based on the transcript of the entire deposition.

A deposition is a sworn testimony in a legal case that was taken out of a courtroom. A legal deposition is considered to be a part of the discovery process for a case. It can be used in a trial but only in a limited manner.

Courts are not involved with depositions. These are usually initiated by the parties in a case and are often supervised by their lawyers. During a deposition, the ones present are the witness, the lawyers for the parties, and a person qualified to administer an oath. To record the deposition, a stenographer might also be there. Electronic recordings are also used now.

Who Should Draft a Legal Deposition Summary?

It is a common practice for law firms to seek support when it comes to full transcripts of depositions just as they seek help when it comes to translation. But a full transcript has way more information than what is actually needed for a case. That’s the reason why it has to be summarized.

A deposition summary is an accurate and objective round-up of the most important points of the entire deposition based on the full transcript. Lawyers use summaries for:

• Getting ready for possible pretrial motions and subsequent depositions
• Getting to examine a witness during a trial
• Looking for useful testimonies that can be used during the trial.

The deposition summary can be very helpful to a lawyer but it’s not necessary that the summary be written by one. In fact, there are legal support services that can handle this particular task.

Reasons Why Legal Depo Summaries Should Be Outsourced

Outsourcing the drafting of a legal deposition summary is becoming the common practice now. It’s the same when outsourcing translation. Companies that do translate legal documents and those handle deposition summaries are out there helping out law firms. Here are some reasons why this process should actually be outsourced.

It’s a Time-Saver

This is arguably the main reason why legal deposition summaries should be outsourced. A summary itself will be short and concise but it has to be sourced from the transcript which can be hundreds of pages long.

The usual process for making a deposition summary is to read and go through the entire transcript and then to make annotations. The important points recorded in the transcript must be highlighted and noted. If the witness speaks another language, then help from a company that does translation might be needed.

After the translation is finished and the important points of the summary have been made, only then will the actual writing start. The summaries can be done in a narrative or outline form.

Whatever the format used for the writing, the whole process will take up a lot of time. Lawyers or the other persons involved in the case will have to dedicate a significant amount of time to write the summary. Most lawyers don’t have the time to spare. Some lawyers end up working 60-70 hours per week and they can’t simply add the writing of a summary to their task.

It’s Faster

This reason still has something to do with time. The companies that write summaries are experienced in the process. While the entire process of reading the transcript, annotating, then writing the summary can take a while, these legal service providers are experts in it.

They have a quick turnaround time that is normally guaranteed.

It’s More Cost-Efficient

A law firm handling a lot of cases will have to deal with a lot of deposition summaries in a month. Writing all of those can be the job of not just one but a whole staff and that can be very costly. Remember the salary of a legal assistant can range from $44,030 to $58,724 yearly.  It’s more cost-effective to just outsource the task and pay either per page or use an hourly wage.

It’s Their Expertise

Another major reason why a legal deposition should be outsourced is because you always want to rely on experts. Legal service providers specialize in doing legal support tasks and that includes drafting summaries. They do it on a regular basis and they know the best way of going through a transcript to create a clear summary.  These legal service experts also know the right format for the summary.

They know all the guidelines that are needed for creating a strong summary.

Improve Performance

Services that provide legal deposition summaries can be a part of the team that supports a law firm like a good company. Lawyers with a strong support team can have better performance when dealing with clients.

Outsourcing Your Deposition Summary Makes Sense

These are just five of the main reasons why you should outsource the creation of a legal deposition summary. It makes more sense to let experts handle things, especially those that have something to do with legal matters. Just like working with a translation company when dealing with depositions in foreign languages, you should let the experts handle summarizing the transcript.