Virtually every litigator has taken or knows about taking video depositions of witnesses and parties. And those depositions have almost always been taken in someone's law office or in a room somewhere in an opponent's office or in a hotel. Craig Ball is a past president of the Houston Trial Lawyers Association. His website, craigball.com, has a variety of great links. In an article entitled "Technology and the Power of Persuasion Beyond Bullet Points," which is in the May/June 2003 issue of ABA's Law Practice Management, he suggested what are to me novel ways to use video depositions by his suggesting unusual places to take those depositions. For instance, he suggested video-deposing an investigating police officer at the scene of the accident in question. He also suggested video-deposing a physician in the examining room. As he stated, "Video technology makes this eminently practical and gives the officer the opportunity to show the investigation that was performed and the doctor the chance to demonstrate diagnostic procedures." He added that "there's no rule that says a deposition need be conducted entirely at one location. It could begin at one location and be adjourned to another so as to cover other topics."
You will probably come up with other possibilities. Once you have the idea of on-site video-deposing as an additional arrow in your legal quiver, the potential is wide open for potential uses of that tool.
Posted by ajlevy at June 15, 2003 5:25 PMA visit to the locus in quo is hardly novel. Just try taking the Judge and the other side along for the ride too.
Posted by: Lara at June 22, 2003 9:27 AMI'm all in favor of that novel use. 2L student, by the way. Can you make the other party's counsel follow you around to multiple locations, though, and will your client have to pay for it?
Posted by: its jake at June 20, 2003 5:20 PMActually, I LIKE technology. The concept of SHOWING the trier of fact what the 'party' saw, where the party saw it, under fairly similar physical circumstances seems to me to be inherently better for the visually oriented animal that humans are (reading and words are fairly recent innovations for humans in the overall time scale). Technology has made it easier to take the mountain to Mohammed. I'm not sure that hiring actors to reinact a set of circumstances is any different from computer generated 'evidence' of bullet trajectories. That kind of actor 'movie' would/should be subject to the same kind of scrutany and objection as is currently aimed at the computer generated animations. BUT, ordinary people (even if they are 'experts') showing what they did, where they did it, basically all in the 'first take', no editing, no retakes, warts and all, should be something that makes the finding of fact more meaningful. Let's make sure to video-tape those who dissent! 030619
Posted by: Tom Stirewalt at June 19, 2003 7:54 AMI think that AJ is on to a novel concept. If the point is to communicate clearly then having a deposition where the deponent can expain things visually will make a lot sense in many cases. Obviously, the concept can be abused. But pretty much everything in the legal profession is prey to abuse. But AJ's ideas are about trying to see things in a novel way. And that is something that the legal profession desperately needs.
Posted by: Ernie at June 17, 2003 8:38 PMwhile we are at it, maybe we should make movies out of those depositions. Think of the Blair Witch deposition and how effective that would be. How about The Ring deposition. For auto accidents, how about the Lethal Weapon deposition. You could hire Mel Gibson as an expert witness as someone who has seen a lot planned accidents and then try to prove that your opponent wasn't merely trying to hit your car on purpose but your opponent was attempting murder! It would be a whole different kind of trial. And then we might as well have the Perry Mason Judge who allows everything a real judge wouldn't allow.
I think the suggestions are a good idea but no where does that mention where the limits should be.