Deposition and Litigation Services

I'm new to the field and wondering how one goes about choosing an agency to handle deposition and litigation needs. I noticed there are some national agencies that handle this sort of thing. Is that a better route than a local agency? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You should ask the attorney if he has a particular firm he likes. Otherwise, chose a local agency for a court reporter. If you're scheduling a depo in another state, do the same. If you need realtime, be sure the firm has realtime. Always try to use RPR or state certified court reporters.

Always confirm your reporter's attendance the day before. If you have problems with an agency (reporter doesn't show up), do not use them again. With the national agencies, that tends to happen. As a court reporter, I think a smaller court reporting firm is better than the national agencies.

The national firms are usually very expensive. Local firms are cheaper. If you are representing companies check with their billing guidelines to see if they dicate which vendors you can use. Sometimes bigger companies contract with vendors for discount rates and you have no choice but to use these vendors.

I do like the national firms if you have to set a bunch of depositions across the country for the same case. You can schedule it all online and then let them find the locations.

Sometimes your local vendors will have connections to other places' local vendors. I find this to be a pain though.

Plaintiff's counsel (the opposite side from what I am on) often use the same local court reporter for everything they do - usally a solo person not with an agency - and they don't want to pay a penny for a location.

For trial logistics work it's better to use a local company who will travel with you to the trial. If it's out of town they will drive the truck there ahead of time and get the war room ready (stripping a hotel room and setting up all of the equipment like copiers and computers, etc.) They will also run the audio/video for you during trial and then pack it all up and get everything home for you. You gotta have experienced people for this - it's not easy!