Like a real lawyer 'n shit

I took my very first official deposition yesterday.

A deposition is like the examination of a witness in a trial, except it's before trial, there is no judge or jury, and it's for the purpose of gathering information.

So yesterday, I sat down with my supervisor, the court reporter, the opposing counsel, and the witness, and I asked all kinds of questions and follow-up questions, and it was weird and familiar and scary and boring and exciting all at once.

It was the first deposition in the disability discrimination suit my internship organization filed in federal court in February. We just started discovery for this case, and my supervisor managed to sneak a depo in for me to do just under the wire – yesterday was the last day of my clinical.

Because the scheduling for this deposition came together very quickly, I kept expecting something to come up and for the deposition to be canceled. After all, I have had three potential clients cancel their intake meetings this semester. (After the third one, my supervisor joked that he knew who to assign new clients to if he didn’t want to take their cases.)

It wasn’t until the last few days that I confronted the idea that I really was going to take this deposition. For once, being so freakin' busy was a blessing. I didn’t have time to think about the fact that I was nervous. My supervisor and I met for two hours yesterday, and went over the questions I had prepared. We discussed them, revised them, and rehearsed. He reassured me that he was not worried at all about my performance, and that I would be just fine.

There was every reason to think that I would be just fine. Discovery for this case started just a few weeks ago, and E.W. was the first witness to be deposed. Because she is one of probably a couple witnesses who will be providing similar information about the work environment and company policies, there wasn’t a great deal riding on her testimony – she could really only help us. So this deposition was probably the least stressful situation possible for a someone like me.

Nevertheless, as my supervisor and I walked downstairs to meet the witness, I had to fight back nervous laughter. I felt like I was just playacting. Surely someone would figure out that I wasn’t in the least qualified to do this? When would they figure that out?

Well, never, as it turned out. The deposition was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. The witness’ spoken English skills were very poor, although she understood us fairly well. I ended up summarizing much of what she said and repeating it back to her in the form of leading questions – which opposing counsel objected to, of course.

My training as a mediator came in pretty handy, since one of the skills we learn is to summarize and frame information. The actual gathering of information wasn’t difficult, but being “on,” as it were, in the stagey format of a deposition, was more disconcerting than I thought it would be. I think I was more nervous about appearing a fool to the opposing counsel and my supervisor than actually doing the depo! (Nice to be all concerned with the case, hk, instead of your own vanity.)

Everyone was very nice about my performance – even the opposing counsel and the court reporter told me: “Good job!” My supervisor was very complimentary, calling it "excellent," saying I was better than my peers, etc. He called me later in the day to say, "By the way, I loved that you totally shot the opposing counsel down."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"When he was starting to explain that he'd be objecting at times and that the witness shouldn't worry about it -- you cut him off and said you'd be covering that. It was like, 'Hey, this is MY deposition.'"

"Oh yeah," I remembered, "but I didn't mean it to come off like that."

"I know. But it was cool."

Ego stroke! I love it. Whee!

There’s something very scary about being responsible for someone else’s life, in even this limited capacity, but in the protective environment of my clinical, and with my supervisor sitting right there whispering needed comments in my ear, it was kinda... fun.

Then I had to listen to the other guy question the witness, though, and that was kinda dull.

But I did a depo! Like a real lawyer 'n shit!