If you are currently only receiving your transcripts and exhibits through an old fashioned hard copy transcript, it’s time to step into the 21st century of litigation support. With the federal courts and Shelby County state courts already having made the move to mandatory electronic filing of transcripts, with Davidson, Knox, and Hamilton counties making plans to do so in the future, it is more important than ever to make the move into the digital age of transcripts.
Modernized court reporters and court reporting firms are making the move toward offering these litigation support options as part of everyday services. Even more importantly, with the latest software available, reporters are able to create a PDF bundled package of the transcript, PDFs of the exhibits, condensed transcript, and keyword concordance, with the exhibits being hyperlinked to the transcript.
Hyperlinking Exhibits Through the advent of hyperlinking, reporters are able to cross reference the exhibit numbers with the digital transcript so that you can click on the hyperlink mark everywhere an exhibit number is mentioned in a transcript and it will pull that exhibit up in a separate window on your computer.
You can also perform the opposite function; by clicking on the exhibit, it will show the hyperlink marks, indicating where the exhibit is mentioned in the transcript. Click on any one of the hyperlink marks, and it will take you to that page and line number in the transcript, with the exhibit still displayed to the side for reference.
Searching Made Simple With this technology, the electronic transcript and hyperlinked exhibits are word and phrase searchable. Through online repositories, an attorney or litigation support assistant can complete word and phrase searches across all transcripts taken in a specific case. For example, you could search for each mention of a certain phrase by multiple witnesses across 20 depositions. The search function will return each reference to that phrase. The search function can also do a search for variances on the phrase.
Meeting Federal (And State) Requirements So many litigation support personnel are having to take physical transcripts and scan them and the exhibits into a PDF package when they receive them in order to deal with the requirements of the federal and some state courts, with most state courts following suit soon toward digital storage of transcripts.
Make sure you’re using a court reporter or court reporting firm that is saving you and your support staff all that time by providing these services as part of the hard copy transcript delivery. Step into the 21st century of litigation support and make your professional life just that much simpler. Max Curry, B.C.R., RPR, LCR, CRI, CCR,
