Posts by Esquire Deposition Solutions

Whether it’s during a deposition or during trial, the job of preserving errors for judicial review is a vital part of the litigator’s professional obligation to his or her client. Many trial outcomes turn on evidentiary rulings, particularly on the exclusion of evidence that one party believes is absolutely essential to its case. When this…

Courts are now reopening across the country and the social distancing requirements that upended traditional civil litigation practices for the past year are gradually being eliminated. The “old normal” appears to be just around the corner. No more need to polish those hard-earned virtual advocacy skills, right?  Yes and no. Although it’s true that in-person…

Legendary jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that “hard cases make bad law,” by which he meant that a legal rule fashioned for an extraordinary circumstance can be inappropriate for the resolution of everyday disputes.  Holmes’ century-old aphorism was recently invoked by several experienced litigators in a discussion about the merits of virtual justice and whether…

For litigators, representing clients during the COVID-19 pandemic has meant developing the skill to effectively conduct a remote deposition. With few courts willing to wait for the day when in-person depositions could safely return, remote depositions — a somewhat novel discovery device in pre-pandemic times— became, out of necessity, the norm. In a litigation environment…

The American Bar Association’s Litigation Section recently gathered two experienced virtual advocates and one judge to discuss their experiences handling remote depositions and virtual trials during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lessons they dispensed were the product of hard-earned experiences in early 2020 — the pioneering days of virtual proceedings. Some were earned through practice and…