More pet peeves - spellouts

[Kyung]

Yes. Yes. I know I'm ranting lately, and this hasn't happened recently but when it does, I feel very dismissed.

So you're asking for spellouts and the attorney tells you just to spell it phonetically or they tell you we'll do it later and you know they're just going to run out the door at the end of the depo or you're asking the witness spellings and the attorney tells the witness, let's go. Or they ask you in that tone (you know the tone) are you done yet?

Excuse me, but I'm trying to make a good transcript here.

Of course, there the considerate attorneys who give me their paralegals information so I can verify spellings with their assistant later. That's kind of nice.

[Bonnie Bettinger]

I hook up my laptop and do realtime to get the most editing done possible before I even leave the job. as we're going I can hit S P E L/S P E L if I need a spelling. Whenever there is a break, I run through it and ask the attorneys or the witness to spell them and put the changes right into the transcript and make the transcript as clean as I can before I even leave the room.
Or I'll go through the untranslates while the attorneys are chatting at the end of the dep and jot a quick list of spellings I need. Then when they go to leave, I'll ask them can I have just one min for some spellings? Usually works.
I end up calling the firm if they are in too big of a hurry and getting spellings from secretaries/paralegals later.

[Lisa Migliore Black]

Kyung, perhaps if you ask at the breaks for spelling help, that might cut down on the time you're keeping the attorneys occupied at the conclusion. Even if you're not asking that many questions at the end, at least you have a captive audience and they can't threaten to leave if you're only on breaks:)

If there are too many questions and/or I'm unsure of what I can accurately research myself, I ask for the witness's email address and send out a list of spellings. I've only had one attorney object to my direcly contacting the witness ever and he requested that I direct my questions to him. For what reason, I don't know--maybe he needed the extra .1 in billable time in forwarding along my email.