What We Think Of Telephone Depositions
To gently ease into the topic: We hate them. Without question.
Having said that, here is an interesting post from Evan Schaeffer of the Trial Practice Blog about telephone depositions.
To make sure we are clear - what we mean by a telephone deposition is that the witness is somewhere else with a court reporter and often with his attorney. You are appearing by speakerphone. The advantage is no travel and thus it is quicker and cheaper. The disadvantages are you can't see the witness (some use video conferencing to correct this problem - we have not tried this yet) and handling documents becomes more difficult. Our experience has been with bad connections over the phone and just not being in sync with the witness who is sitting in a conference room a thousand miles away. Maybe we'll try them again one day but so far we have kept our vow for five years - no telephone depositions!
