Learning How to Take a Deposition

For lawyers learning how to take depositions, there's no better way to jumpstart the process than by reading old deposition transcripts. If you take this approach yourself, pay particular attention to depositions taken by the lawyers you are working for. Their own deposition styles will likely be used as models for what they'd like to see in you, meaning those styles would be good ones for you to imitate.

Have copies made of the old transcripts you're studying. Pay attention to how the lawyer taking a deposition introduces and uses exhibits, how he responds to objections by the other side, and how he follows-up on the fly to the answers the witness gives, rather than just reading questions from an outline.

Comments

[Yeoman]

Sitting in a few depositions, whether or not they are your cases, is also very helpful.