What to Send With a Transcript for a Deposition Summary

Before a transcript goes out for summary, spend ten minutes with the folder it came from.

The transcript is the testimony. Everything around it tells the summarizer how to read that testimony: which Exhibit 7 the witness was holding, whether page 88 has already been corrected, and whether "Dr. Patel" and "Dr. Patil" are one surgeon or two. When those files stay behind, the summary either guesses or stops to ask, and neither is what you want the week before the next deposition.

This post is about the files. Choices like format, template and level of detail are a separate conversation, covered in settling format and level of detail before you order. Here's what should be in the upload itself.

Pick one clean transcript file

Send the full-page transcript with visible page and line numbers, or the reporter's electronic transcript if you have it. A condensed version, with several transcript pages printed on one sheet, works for reading but makes page-line citations easier to get wrong.

If the reporter included a word index at the back, keep it in. It helps a reviewer find every mention of a provider or a date quickly. And if you have both a PDF and a text version, say which one controls so every citation comes from the same file.

Exhibits, as marked

Send every exhibit referred to in the transcript, using the numbers or letters given on the record. A deposition summary can report that the witness "reviewed Exhibit 12," but without Exhibit 12 it can't say that Exhibit 12 was the March MRI report rather than the April one.

Exhibits sometimes arrive from the reporter on a different day than the transcript. That's fine. Send what you have, list what's missing, and the summary can mark those exhibit references as unverified until the rest come in. The one thing to avoid is renaming or renumbering exhibits in your own file system before sending them. The summary has to match the record, not the folder.

Certified, rough, or corrected?

Tell the summarizer which version of the transcript this is. A rough draft can be summarized for early preparation, but its page and line numbers are provisional, which we cover in summarizing from a rough draft transcript.

For a certified transcript, check the reporter's certificate page. Under Federal Rule 30(e)(2), the officer notes there whether the witness requested review and attaches any changes made during the review period. So send:

• The certificate page, even if it's already inside the PDF.
• Any errata sheet you've received.
• A one-line note if review was requested and the window hasn't closed yet, so the summary can flag that corrections may still come.

A names and terms list

Court reporters work from what they hear. Provider names, facility names, drug names and street names are where a transcript is most likely to carry a spelling the witness never intended. The summarizer can't fix that from the transcript alone.

A short list solves most of it:

• Treating providers and their specialties
• Hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and imaging centers
• Medications and devices named in the case
• Employers, co-workers, family members and other people the witness is likely to mention

If a medical chronology or provider index already exists, that list is probably sitting inside it. Send it as is. The summary then spells each name the same way every time, and it flags any name in the transcript that doesn't match the list rather than quietly correcting it.

Who the witness is

Two transcripts can read almost the same and need very different summaries, depending on who's testifying and why. A few lines of context go a long way:

1. Role: plaintiff, defendant, treating provider, retained expert, fact witness, corporate representative.
2. Who noticed the deposition and which attorneys asked questions.
3. Earlier summaries in the case, so issue headings and names line up across witnesses.
4. Any earlier deposition of the same witness, in this case or a related one, if counsel wants it referenced.

The chronology, if you have one

When a witness says "that was after my second injection," a summary with the medical chronology beside it can note the documented date and the record it comes from. Without the chronology, it can only repeat the witness's words. Sharing it lets a reviewer tie testimony to the medical records while the summary is being built, rather than in a separate pass later.

This is careful, clinical reading work, and it's where LezDo TechMed's deposition summary services put medical and paramedical reviewers on the transcript, with a three-layer quality-control process behind every summary.

Flag access limits

If a protective order applies, or parts of the transcript were designated confidential, say so in the upload and point to the pages. The summary should carry the same designation on every entry drawn from those pages, because a summary can end up in emails and expert packets where the transcript itself never goes. Who may see it is counsel's call. The summary's job is to make the designation impossible to miss.

Send a short cover note

Put all of this into five lines at the top of the upload: transcript version, exhibits attached and missing, names list attached, witness role, and any designations. It takes a few minutes to write. It saves the back-and-forth that otherwise happens on the day the summary was supposed to land.