With improving technology, it’s becoming more and more common for attorneys to display their exhibits on a projector at trial so that the jury can see and better absorb the testimony that accompanies each exhibit.  But when playing back a videotaped deposition at trial, too many attorneys are still treating exhibits the old-fashioned way — discussing the exhibits without showing them to the jury.

Multimedia Depositions enable the mixing of documents, other evidence, and/or demonstratives directly into the video record at the time of the deposition.  A monitor is set up for the witness so that he or she can view the exhibits at the deposition.  The final product includes the exhibit displayed full screen, along with a picture-in-picture of the witness in the bottom corner.  This perspective enables the jury to see the witness’s reaction to an exhibit as they’re reviewing it.

A recent deposition that we covered in New York City illustrates the impact of this technology.  The deposition would – in the client’s estimation – make or break his case.  The issue at hand was whether or not the witness’s signature had been forged on certain contracts.  The client had reached out a week prior to the deposition to discuss the situation, and we agreed the most useful solution would be to set it up as a multimedia deposition.

Counsel instructed the witness to place his signature on a piece of paper at the deposition, which was then scanned with a portable document scanner, then displayed side by side with the contract.  On playback, the jury could compare the signatures while the witness testified on review of each contract that the signature was not his.

While this technology may not be useful for every deposition, use of multimedia depositions are certainly a very powerful tool in the right scenario.