How to calculate on federal depos the "Seven-Hour Rule"

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I don't know about you guys, but if my depo doesn't have a videographer, I absolutely hate having to be in charge of keeping track of time.

However, I just realized on my iPhone there is a "Clock" app and if you hit on "Stopwatch" you can hit start and it counts up the time and you can hit "stop" and it stops.  When your break is over, just hit "Start" again and it keeps going.  

I am overjoyed to have figured this out.  I am usually doing it by hand and writing down the time from each break and adding it all up.  It gets confusing sometimes.  This is going to make my life so much easier.  Just thought I'd share if any of you have this problem and you have an iPhone.  Woooohoooo!!

You have no idea how happy this makes me.

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Hi, Kelli.  Texas can weigh in, but I think reporters in TX are required to keep the time and must give the total upon request.  What a pain in the ass.  Now, I'm not sure if they're required to say how much time each side has had, or just how long on the record.  I had an atty a few weeks ago bitching about how objections were taking up his time, and he wanted me to add up the objection time.  Uh-huh.  That's a very sarcastic uh-huh, meaning no, not doing that.  I have a Droid phone, but I'd mess it up for sure.  I'll do it the old fashioned way and add it up, but thank goodness I rarely go without a videographer.

M.A.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I'm with you there, Mary Ann.  They usually the videographers take care of it.  A lot of times, though, they mess it up.  They are not always the sharpest tool in the shed, if you know what I mean.  I think I'm going to start having it as a backup.  I've caught some omitting an entire hour before.  I've called them on it and had to have them recalculate it and guess what??  I was right.  This way, no more arguments.  Very easy to follow.

I agree with you.  There is no way I would bother with the objection time.  Seriously?  What do you think I'm doing here?   Attorneys sometimes can be annoying.  I know my father and step-father are attorneys, but still - they're annoying sometimes.

[Janiece Young]

Kelli,

On CC there is a clock that keeps time of each speaker.  If we have that, then I'm sure Eclipse has it too.  Eclipse is usually first on coming out with new features.  We have had this clock for many years.

[Cindy Boedy]

Yes, Eclipse has a timer but I have found it's never accurate to the time the videographer has for his tape time.

 

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

At least with this timer, as long as I can remember to pause it, I'll have an accurate time that everyone can see.  It's all a matter of remembering.  I just know I'm constantly saying, "Are you sure that's the right time?"  It just never seems right.  Remember, they get paid by the hour - we don't.

K.

[Laura Renke]

Yes, Eclipse has built-in timers.  At the top of the screen click Tools, then Timekeeper, enter, enter, enter to generate a time report.  Press enter again to save the report in your transcript or escape to clear it from the screen.  You can run it at any time, so you can try it out on a transcript you're working on now.

One of the screens you're pressing enter at you select the paragraph types you want included in the time calculation.  Eclipse will remember your selections, so you set that up the first time you use Timekeeper and you won't have to mess with it again.

Cindy, I've found the timekeeper to be quite accurate.  Are you maybe writing your speaker IDs at the beginning half an hour before starting and then writing text on that same line?  That might throw it off because it'll see that as that person speaking and using all that time.

You can assign the Timekeeper to a writer macro so that you can run it from your writer and then clear it with your panic stroke.  It literally takes a second or two to run, so it's much faster and easier than manually tallying time.  When a videographer provides the run time for the attorneys, I'll double-check what they say, and it's usually within a couple of minutes.  When it's not, I tend to trust Eclipse.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

That's pretty cool.  I knew Eclipse had a timer and tried it one time, but couldn't get it to work.  I may try it again sometime.  Sort of frustrating it's been there all this time and I didn't even know about it.  Figures.

[Rhonda Hall Breuwet, RDR CRR CLR]

I use my Marantz PMD620 digital recorder as a microphone, having it hooked into my audiosync, which gives me two recordings.  The digital recorder has it down to the second how long we've been on record, so if they happen to ask, I just look at my big display on the recorder and tell them how many hours and minutes we have been going.