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Introduction
to Summation Realtime Software
By
Jon Sigerman, President of Summation Legal Technologies
Copyright by Summation
Legal Technologies, Inc. 1998
What
is Summation Interactive Realtime?
Introduced
with Summation Blaze version 5.2, interactive Realtime gives you
a direct feed of transcribed testimony from the Court Reporter
into a Summation transcript window. At any time during the deposition,
you can view the court reporter's draft transcription of the questions
and answers as they are taking place; somewhat like viewing closed-caption
text on television. However, unlike closed-caption television,
you can interact with the Realtime feed. Interactive operations
include searching or revisiting everything that has been said
in the session, flagging noteworthy testimony without loss of
focus on the proceeding, issue coding, and notetag-like annotating.
The
Advantages of Interactive Realtime
- You
can let up on note taking since you no longer need to depend
on your notes to capture what was said. You can now look at
your computer screen. Once you let up on note taking, you will
find that you pick up the pace of your questioning, and proceed
in a staccato fashion, giving the witness less opportunity to
hedge, reflect, rethink, etc.
- Use
space bar initiated Quick Marks to designate where you may need
to better lock in the witness. Revisiting transcribed testimony
reduces your reliance on memory or incomplete notes to help
you analyze whether to stand pat, or risk asking that one question
too many allowing the witness an escape. Or, use a Quick Mark
to return to see whether you actually asked the question that
you really intended to ask. Space bar quick marking allows you
to flag testimony without having to look at the screen, take
your eye off the witness, or break your train of thought.
- Use
the Report to hold in a position of ready access testimony
you wish to revisit or expand on after laying new foundations
or when the timing is otherwise right. The Report bundles quick-marked
lines (as well as issue coded and annotated lines if you wish)
in context with surrounding testimony into a dedicated report
window viewable at the click of a button. The Report can also
be viewed side-by-side with the Realtime feed window.
- Use
the Quick Mark, scrollbar, PageUp, UpArrow keys, or word search
to revisit testimony without tipping off the witness (or witness'
attorney) by asking the court reporter to read back the testimony.
Backing up to a previous question and answer allows you to read
the exact wording previously used as you are framing a follow-up
question that references prior testimony.
- You
can use Summation's simple search [search box search and binocular
click] to verify that your question had not been "asked
and answered" or establish that your foundational question
does not misstate prior testimony. The converse applies to your
opponent's questions.
- Use
breaks as opportunities to go back and read crucial testimony
to make sure that you have not misspoken (e.g., used the wrong
date), the court reporter has not misheard a crucial question
or answer, or, in general, the record of important testimony
indeed appears as you intended. If any of the above problems
are discovered at the break, then you can clean up the record
before the witness is released, coached, etc. Whereas if you
had to wait for the certified transcript to discover the problem,
you might be faced with having to move the court for an additional
deposition of the witness or giving the deponent's attorney
the opportunity to work with the witness.
- Use
the Quick Mark to flag areas related to other depositions or
other documents that you wish to check at the break. Again,
you can revisit the Quick Marks and access the full case evidence
base at the break. Or, if you have the opportunity for potentially
killer impeachment, right then and there, you may wish to pause
in the deposition, and toggle to the Summation case folder screen
so that you can search your database or case outline for the
document that provides the impeachment information. Once you
find the document, you can view it in context with what the
deponent just said. Then you can formulate your impeachment
questions or set-up questions with the foundational information
right at your fingertips.
- With
Realtime you walk away from the deposition with a rough draft
of the transcript so that you can better prepare for upcoming
proceedings, such as the next day's deposition session.
Arrangements
for Realtime Deposition
I.
Hardware and Software
- A
Pentium PC-compatible notebook computer with Windows '95/'98/NT
and a recommended minimum 32 megabytes of RAM
- Summation
Blaze version 5.2 single user system (or greater) loaded on
the notebook computer
- Bring
a floppy disk to the deposition in case you need an updated
copy of the day's transcript at the end of the session (e.g.,
if you arrived late).
II.
Notice to Court Reporter and Opposition
- If
you are taking the deposition, notify your court reporter that
you wish to use Summation Interactive Realtime. Also, make sure
they bring enough cables for you and any other attendee who
may want access to a Realtime feed. To eliminate any objections
from your opposition, indicate in your Notice of Deposition
that you are going to use Summation Interactive Realtime transcription.
- If
your opponent has noticed a deposition and you wish to use Summation
Realtime for the deposition, call your opponent to find out
the name of their court reporter. Call the court reporter and
indicate that you wish to use Summation Realtime at the deposition.
Again, to avoid any objections at the deposition, you might
carbon copy the written request to their court reporter for
a Summation Interactive Realtime connection to the noticing
attorney. Also, enclose an additional request to the noticing
attorney stating that if the attorney subsequently changes reporters,
you want to be so informed.
III.
Available Serial Port
- Check
that the computer you intend to take with you to the deposition
has a serial port available for the Realtime feed. Know the
Summation set-up wizard exists. The wizard is also your
entree to the simulated feed addressed in the next section.
When you call your court reporting service to set up the deposition,
ask that your reporter be familiar with using Summation's unique
set-up wizard. [Also, if you use a personal organizer that attaches
to your computer, such as a Palm Pilot, or if your computer
has an infra-red monitor, Summation will give you a warning
during set up, letting you know that you will need to check
and make sure that it is disabled. For example, when your computer
is connected to a Palm Pilot, the Hot Sync program may need
to be disabled. Don't depend on Summation for the warning. Find
out if your laptop has an infra-red monitor. If it does take
care of what needs to be done to avoid interference before the
Realtime session.]
IV.
Day of the Deposition
-
Arrive
at least 15 minutes earlier than you normally would in order
to give the court reporter a chance to connect to your computer
with a serial cable. Then have the court reporter send you
a test feed while the Summation Wizard walks you through set
up.
During
the lunch break, you can disconnect from the court reporter
and review the morning session, review your annotations, search
and analyze information such as prior transcripts, document
summaries and images on the computer.
You
can reconnect with the serial cables and pick up right where
you left off in the Realtime transcript. You will still have
the ability to revisit the early morning testimony as though
you had never been disconnected. The Resume operations are
described in the Realtime manual and also on the cue card
provided with the program. Make sure that you have a cue card
and take it to the deposition. If you do not, call your Summation
representative.
If
you missed the morning session, you can still receive and
annotate the afternoon session. To obtain the complete deposition,
obtain a diskette of the entire testimony from the court reporter.
Use Summation's annotation
synchronizer to insure that annotations are placed in the
proper location in the substituted file contained on the diskette
provided by the reporter. This diskette will be an unscoped
rough draft of the transcript.
V.
After Deposition Day
-
The
court reporter will send you the certified original of the
transcript. Load the certified original ASCII file. You will
generally want to give it the same name as the draft transcript
file so that you replace the draft with the certified original.
Once again, the notes will be synchronized from the rough
draft transcript, using Summation's annotation synchronizer.
[Keep in mind page and line numbers will be different but
the annotations will be synchronized between the rough draft
and certified final.]
Using
Summation Realtime Software
I.
Realtime Simulation
-
You
can see what a Realtime feed looks like. With just a fifteen-minute
total time investment, you can practice with Summation's simulated
Realtime feed and get some sense of what the Realtime feed
feels like and how it works before the real deposition. You
initiate the simulated feed by choosing the third option of
the set up wizard. Once the feed starts, you can practice
some of the most basic features described in the Summation
Realtime User Guide, such as:
- Use
the space bar - Quick Mark for flagging noteworthy testimony
or objections. Try pressing the space bar twice during the course
of the Realtime feed. By doing so, you have created two quick
marks. As you become more comfortable using Interactive Realtime,
you may want to use the issue mark--like a colored paper clip;
simply click on the key issue or type its corresponding number.
- Revisiting
earlier testimony via backward scrolling or using the PAGE UP
and ARROW keys, and getting back to the latest testimony by
clicking on the scroll icon or pressing the END key.
- Accessing
the Report window (click on Report icon). The Report window
is accessible by a click and embeds in an easily readable report
of the snippets of testimony surrounding the lines where you
made quick marks, placed issue codes, or added a note tag. For
example the two quick marks you made above would appear in a
quick mark report. More importantly, you can point to any entry
in the report then zoom right to the place in the Realtime transcript
where you made the mark.
- Searching
the Realtime feed for key words, by using the search phrase
box.
- Toggling
between Summation's main menu and the Realtime window so that
you can search the entire case including the document database,
ocrBase, and previous deposition transcripts and digests (click
on the folders icon and the Realtime button for toggling).
- Toggling
to the Case Organizer and its one-click links to your deposition
question checklist, document images, video deposition clips,
briefs, and other objects (toggle by clicking on the case organizer
icon in upper toolbar).
II.
Issue Coding
-
Clicking
on an issue from your issue table or typing the corresponding
Arabic number will create an annotation with your chosen issue
associated with it. The set up procedure involves selecting
key issues from your case issue table which are most applicable
to the upcoming deposition. (Click on the issues button, right
click on your chosen issue and select key issue) The color
key issue list is easy to set up; and as you know, the high
priority issues can change from deposition to deposition.
(Summation at the same time assigns numbers to your key color-coded
issues). You can always bring up your entire case issue table
at the deposition; but as a practical matter, it is difficult
to select from a long list of codes while trying to maintain
your focus on the deposition. Typing a number or clicking
on an issue labeled color bar from an issue list is much less
distracting in the heat of deposition. Again, you are substantively
preparing for deposition by going through the exercise of
identifying key issues and themes pertinent to that deposition.
III.
Annotating
-
In
addition to the above, you can type more extensive annotations,
along the lines of writing out a sticky note or jotting down
handwritten entries in the right half of your yellow pad.
Those of you, who have already used Summation's annotation
system (also referred to as note tags or electronic sticky
notes) for reviewing a completed transcript, will be comfortable
annotating the Realtime feed. The operations are identical.
For example, you may want to fine craft a follow-up question
adjacent to a just received answer. Simply double click in
the left margin, and fill in the note tag window provided
to you.
IV.
Case Outline / Blueprint
-
If
you intend to access your case blue print, or a special outline
dedicated to the upcoming deposition, make sure you designate
document summaries and images from the database which you
want in your hip pocket for single-click access. The Case
Organizer adds another interactive dimension to interactive
Realtime transcription- the ability to have in your hip pocket
document images, document summaries, deposition excerpts,
and video clips that you might want to refer to during the
course of the deposition.
The
Case Organizer is easy to bring up while the Realtime transcription
is being delivered, and it is likewise easy to get out of
your way with one click of the minimize button. Above all,
it is very easy to access information from the Case Organizer's
object links system without losing your train of thought.
The link buttons are highly visible, can be well labeled with
special fonts, and be expanded to show a summary of the various
links.
An
outline can even contain your script of questions for the
deposition. Use it to rearrange the order of the questions,
check off the ones that have been asked, or flag the ones
that have been asked or partially asked. [See end of Chapter
7, of Summation's Attorney Guide Help - F2]
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