A deposition digest is essentially a summary of a deposition.
You can consider a deposition digest to be a reduced version of the original deposition transcript.
A deposition digest will relate the relevant information found in the deposition transcript in a short, concise and objective way.
We say deposition “digest” as the person in charge of summarizing it will need to boil it down to its essential components.
A deposition digest can be done using a few techniques, such as:
- Page-by-page digest
- Topical digest
- Chronological digest
An effective deposition digest will objectively outline the factual statements revealed by a witness relevant to the lawsuit.
The facts are related as the witness presented them without bias, inclusion of personal opinions or distortion.
Typically, the deposition summary will be attached to the actual deposition transcript.
This way, a lawyer or client looking to consult the deposition transcript can quickly see the summary and identify the pages and lines where important statements were made by the witness.
A good strategy is to read the deposition of all witnesses and identify important statements, inconsistencies or even contradictions in the digest.
There is good or bad deposition digest.
What’s important is that the important statement of the witness is extracted and identified for a quick reference.
Interesting articles on depositions: