Electronic Exhibits At Deposition

 Since even before 2020, there were better ways to do it electronically and I experimented with a lot of them.  TrialPad, for me, became the most effective solution but there were others in development.  The pandemic and remote work resulted in rapid development of these solutions so that we don’t need to do exhibits the traditional way.  Depending on your skill level, there are at least two good solutions.

 

The first, which the firm promotes, is TrialPad.  Eric Stettin and I have both done this using Zoom or some combination of Zoom and an in-room monitor like Zoom Rooms.  Zoom allows for an unlimited number of devices to connect and see the exhibits via laptops and tablets, as well as an in-room monitor.  You load everything into TrialPad, share it to Zoom, and away you go.  You can do everything you need to do, including mark exhibits, right from TrialPad.  It requires training and practice to do that.  So far, only Stettin has asked me about it.  I showed him and he’s been doing it that way more or less ever since.

 

Another method with a shallower  learning curve is using court reporting services to run electronic exhibits.  There’s a higher cost, of course, but they can manage the entire process for you and train you on using their system prior to the deposition.  It’s probably easier in the short term, but you won’t have the convenience of having things in TrialPad ready to go for any purpose like you might if you were using TrialPad from the beginning of the case.