“In Deposition Reporting you require professionalism, dependability, availability and stability as well as quick turnaround. Anything else is just not acceptable!”

RealLegal Publisher™
Bundle Transcripts and Corresponding Imaged Documents and Synched Video

RealLegal Publisher is the perfect complement to RealLegal E-Transcript Manager and accelerates how legal professionals gather and digest case materials. The intuitive software enables court reporters to select specific E-Transcript files and scanned exhibits for a custom “bundle”, all stored within a viewing environment containing the popular E-Transcript Viewer and the Real Exhibit Viewer. RealLegal Publisher owners can send the bundle of E-Transcript files and exhibits as a collective package rather than delivering the two elements separately. Click here for the Publisher product home page.

RealLegal® Publisher™
Bundle transcripts and corresponding digital exhibits within a powerful viewer.


A Real Solution
RealLegal Publisher is the perfect complement to RealLegal E-Transcript Manager software and accelerates how legal professionals capture and digest case materials. The intuitive software enables court reporters to select specific E-Transcript files, video depositions footage, and scanned documents for a custom “bundle” that is stored within a "software-agnostic" viewing environment containing the popular E-Transcript Viewer, the RealLegal Image Viewer and the RealLegal Video Player. The embedded Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Engine converts static, scanned documents to searchable content. The provided RealLegal MediaSync™ application automatically synchronizes audio or video with transcript text. The output, a RealLegal Publisher Bundle, is a cohesive presentation stored on a compact disc or accessible from the Internet.

Made for Legal Professionals
Like RealLegal E-Transcript Manager, RealLegal Publisher software is a tool used by court reporters to create a value-added output file for their law firm clients. Each Publisher Bundle has a single, high-performance interface for both transcripts, documents and video.

Built for Compatibility
Recipients of Publisher Bundles can use it alone or import the contents into a demo or licensed copy of RealLegal Binder discovery management software. Each bundle comes as a self-contained presentation that operates independently from any software. Anyone can use it!

In addition to the E-Transcript format, RealLegal Publisher software accepts all standard formats for images, including: PDF, GIF, JPG, TIF, and BMP. Software owners can either burn the bundle to a compact disc for delivery, or provide law firms with online access to its contents via a RealLegal iBinder repository.

California Code Change

California Code of Civil Procedure 2025, which governs the taking of oral depositions in California, was amended effective January 1, 1999 by AB 2150. This section was revised by a series of three bills in 1998 (S.B.2145 §1, A.B.1094 §22 and A.B.2150 §4). Two of the changes affect attorneys taking depositions.

The section now requires, interalia, that any intention to use Interactive Realtime reporting must be stated in the deposition notice. While the Code does not yet specifically address the use of Realtime over the Internet, we strongly recommend that any intention to use this service also be stated in the deposition notice, along with an indication as to who will be viewing the testimony remotely.

Code of Civil Procedure Section 2025 is the section giving the rules for conducting oral depositions in California state courts. This section was revised by a series of three bills in 1998 (S.B.2145 §1, A.B.1094 §22 and A.B.2150 §4) which took affect in January of this year. Two of the changes affect attorneys taking depositions.

Realtime

One change involves the use of realtime reporting in depositions. To ensure that all parties are equally prepared to avail themselves of this technology, the code was amended to have the notice state that realtime reporting (instant visual display) would be used at the deposition.

2025(d)(5) now says that the deposition notice shall state, "any intention to record the testimony by stenographic method, through the instant visual display of the testimony. In the latter event, a copy of the deposition notice shall also be given to the deposition officer. Any offer to provide the instant visual display of the testimony or to provide rough draft transcripts to any party which is accepted prior to, or is offered at, the deposition shall also be made by the deposition officer at the deposition to all parties in attendance."

Going off the Record

The other major change this year concerned when the reporter was to cease recording the testimony. To clarify what to do in situations where one party wants to go off the record and the other does not, 2025(n) has now been amended to read, "The deposition officer shall not suspend the taking of testimony without stipulation of the party conducting the deposition and the deponent unless any party attending the deposition or the deponent demands the taking of testimony be suspended to enable that party or deponent to move for a protective order..."

Prior to these changes, the section only stated that the reporter would go off the record when a party or the witness wanted to move for a protective order, but did not cover any other conditions under which the taking of testimony would be suspended.

It had become practice for an attorney to just say "off the record" when not wanting a discussion to be recorded. This would result in conflicts when one side wanted to go off the record, but the other did not, with the court reporter left in the middle. Now the reporter will only go off the record when the terms of the revised code are met.

Per the legislative analysis for S.B.2145, "A positive result of this bill would be to assure the availability of recorded testimony of an entire oral deposition, including any argumentative or abusive language, which may be used as evidence in support of a motion for a protective order."

The full text of the law may be obtained from the California legislature's website at www.leginfo.ca.gov.