The Whys and Wherefores of Video Recorded Depositions
In a recent case, a New York attorney was able to strongly suggest that an executive on the witness stand had misstated the facts he had offered partners in a proposed business deal. Waving a scanning wand over a list of bar codes, the attorney quickly selected from his index a damaging snippet from a video deposition the executive had given before trial. Suddenly, on a giant screen, the witness was contradicting his own court testimony. There were even subtitles underlining his admissions. The video reality has become more real than the live testimony. In this case, the video clips helped persuade the judge to throw out the suit midway through trial, a win for the client on the defense side.
Video depositions are transforming trials into teledramas as modem lawyers adapt the techniques of tough TV journalists. Attorneys are playing unflattering footage over and over and combining sound bites with documents in slick presentations.
Used During the Fact-Finding Phase
Taken during the pretrial discovery phase of lawsuits, depositions give lawyers a chance to question deponents under oath. The sessions often involve endless legal parrying, since many lawyers advise clients to reveal little and take time before answering. But now, those tactics are changing because they can so easily make a witness look evasive on the video recording. Also fueling the revolution is new technology that lets lawyers pull up footage in seconds and use laptop computers to package video clips on the spot. The ABA even endorses the practice of splicing clips from several witnesses into one smooth presentation, so jurors can compare testimony on the same subject.