The Courts of Appeal have been silent on FEHA cases recently, but every day lawyers all over California are working up and defending FEHA cases. That means depositions with lots of exhibits! That used to mean preparing multiple copies of each exhibit for the deposition.

But not anymore. Attorney Chad Burton recommends using iPads and monitors for depositions. I have not tried this yet, but I will try it soon.

Like most attorneys, I have traveled for depositions with hundreds of paper exhibits. We used to prepare all the copies ahead of time and then have them shipped to the court reporter’s office. Sometimes new exhibits would need to be printed, usually when opposing counsel on the morning of the deposition “just discovered” some new documents and in “good faith” are providing copies before the deposition. (And of course, they don’t mind waiting so I can get up-to-speed on the newly discovered documents.)

Burton’s solution seems like it would work well. I already use Trialpad for presentations, and it works well, but I am not sure about shipping monitors around for depositions. Most court reporter’s offices already had large monitors, so the next time I try this on an out-of-town deposition I will call ahead first.

My office has been paperless for several years now so I am going to start using Burton’s recommendations for paperless depositions, but I am going to practice ahead of time to make sure I am not learning during the deposition. When I first got Trialpad, I found that it is not as intuitive as I thought it would be, so I had to learn the ins-and-outs of the program. But it does work very well. I just use Apple TV to wirelessly connect my iPad to a large monitor.