Are Depositions Going Back To Being In Person?

16 Mar Are Depositions Going Back To Being In Person?

As owner of a court reporting firm, I am often asked this question. The answer is yes and no. Many attorneys see the benefit of conducting short depositions remotely to cut down on travel time to the deposition location and back home. For some in Utah, that is at least an hours drive.

We have worked with our clients to share exhibits for them so they can concentrate on their deposition strategy and leave exhibit sharing to us. For longer depositions we are seeing folks go back to holding in person depositions, preferring to see their deponent onsite. We still see people social distancing at the deposition site, but not many are wanting to wear masks at all. In my experience, not many people have chosen to get vaccinated, but there is a weariness for mask wearing. We would be lying if we said it was easy to hear the deponent wearing a mask, so when deponents opt o go mask free, the court reporters job gets sooooo much easier.

Will depositions go back to the pre-Covid norm? No, I don’t think so. There are too many benefits to online depositions to simply walk away from the advantages they offer participants.