Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Timer and Timestamping
• Mark Documents as Exhibits
• Exporting Exhibits
• Communication and Collaboration Tools
  • Chat
  • Tasks

Introduction

Depositions include a variety of useful tools to be used during the deposition itself. These can all be found on the same tab as your preparation work. This article will cover how to use Everlaw’s Depositions feature as your deposition is in progress. Within the Deposition, you can mark exhibit numbers for documents, filter your Exhibits view, and export your exhibits list. You can also collaborate and communicate in real time. This is supported by Timer, Chat, and Tasks features that will help throughout your deposition workflow.

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Timer and Timestamping 

The Deposition timer is useful for tracking your deposition. In particular, you can timestamp chat communications as well as any written notes in your Deposition text body. This allows you to flag and later recall critical moments of the deposition - you will be able to go back in the recording to the time indicated by the chat and associate the notes you took in the chat with particular moments in the deposition. 

The timer is in the top right of your Deposition. Click the green “play” button to start the timer for the Deposition. Throughout the deposition, you can stop, pause, and reset the timer. If a user has View permissions, they cannot edit timer settings but will be able to see the state of the timer. Otherwise, users with Edit or Share/Delete permissions will be able to pause, stop, and reset the timer. 

To timestamp a specific note in your text body, use the shortcut “Control + M” on your keyboard.

All chats sent while the timer is running will be timestamped by default. You can learn more about Chat in this section of the article. 

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Mark Documents as Exhibits

As documents are introduced as exhibits, you can mark them with the exhibit name, which comprises the exhibit prefix and an alphanumeric identifier. These are commonly referred to as the exhibit number. There are three ways to do this: 

• From the document details view in the sidebar, which can be reached by clicking the corresponding document object in the Deposition body or the documents tab of the sidebar.
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•  From the Exhibits view
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• From the sidebar in the document preview
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To mark a document as an exhibit, you must: 

1. Select an exhibit prefix
   • The prefix will be pre-populated with either the default prefix (“Exhibit”) or the last prefix you used. If your permissions allow you to manage prefixes, you will see a “Manage Prefixes” link. 
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   • Clicking on this link will open a pop-up where you can add new prefixes and edit existing ones. To add a prefix, click the “New prefix” button and input the prefix in the new row that appears. Keep in mind that you must both “create” the new prefix and “save” the changes for any modifications (additions, edits, deletions) to take effect.
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2. Input the exhibit alphanumeric identifier
   • Everlaw supports any alphanumeric text as the exhibit identifier. If the exhibit identifier includes invalid symbols, like dashes or dots, Everlaw will convert them to spaces. For example, if you input “abc-def”, it will be saved as “abc def”
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Once assigned, exhibit names are displayed: 

• On the right of each document object.
• In the “Exhibit” field in the list view and in the document preview sidebar

Lastly, you can filter your documents list by only the marked exhibits.

If you've uploaded a deposition transcript, marked exhibits will be linked automatically in the transcript text. For more information, please see this article section on automatic and manual exhibit linking. 

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Exhibits View

The Exhibits view shows all documents and testimony referenced in your Deposition text body. Documents and testimony are arranged in the order they are referenced in your Deposition. If a Story item was referenced more than once in the Deposition text, Exhibits will use the first instance of that item in its list order. If you hide testimony from your Exhibits view, your documents will then be assigned new numbers in the exhibit list based on their order without testimony. 

To learn how these exhibit numbers will be linked to your transcript text, you can visit this help article. 

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Exporting Exhibits 

Within the Deposition, you have the ability to export the list of exhibits, their exhibit numbers, and related metadata, description, and relevance.

You can customize what information to display in your Exhibits view, which dictates what information will be exported. Filter your Exhibits view by clicking on the Settings icon.  Here, you have the option to remove or add the document’s description, relevance, or metadata by unchecking or checking the boxes. In addition, you can choose which metadata to display and export by clicking  “Customize metadata” in Settings. You can also click Select All or Select None within the Customize Metadata dialog box.

If you'd like to export your exhibit list to CSV, click CSV Export on the top right. Your export will begin immediately. Your CSV will be configured according to what is currently displayed (see the paragraph above). Once the file is ready to be downloaded, a notification will appear. You can download the file from a link on the notification, or on the associated card in the Batches & Exports column on the homepage.

You can publish a more extensive report of your exhibits to PDF. Click Publish to PDF in the above view and specify your settings.

First, name your file, which will default to the Deposition name.

Next, decide whether you’d like to publish your exhibit list to a single PDF, which will combine a table of contents and each exhibit into a single document, or a ZIP of individual PDFs, in which your table of contents and each exhibit will be individual files in the ZIP file. 

You can then choose to include a Table of Contents, document images, testimony, highlights, and a description page before each exhibit. Whatever display settings you selected earlier will be reflected in your Table of Contents. The Table of Contents will also include marked exhibit numbers, if applicable to the documents in the list.

When you are happy with your configuration, click Publish to begin exporting your exhibit list to PDF.  Once the file is ready to be downloaded, a notification will appear. You can download the file from a link on the notification, or on the associated card in the Batches & Exports column on the homepage.

If you marked your document with an exhibit number, it will appear here in the Table of Contents:

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Communication and Collaboration Tools

In addition to introducing and marking exhibits, being able to collaborate within your team during a deposition is of critical importance. Depositions includes a robust set of tools that will aid in your deposition workflow. 

Chat

The chat module can be used to instantly communicate to one another throughout the deposition. This is useful for time-sensitive matters, such as which exhibits to introduce next, or communicating with others from your team who are not physically present at the deposition. 

To send a chat, click the input box, type your chat, then press Enter. Anyone with any access to the Deposition can read, write, and export chat messages. 

Note: Chat messages cannot be deleted once they are sent.

Unread messages will be indicated by a notification badge in the Chat tab. If you are on a different tab, you will see “User says…” on your deposition tab if you have an unread message. Messages that are received while the chat is open and the user has scrolled to the bottom will automatically be marked as read.

If the timer is running, any chat you send will be time stamped automatically. To send a chat without a timestamp, click the timestamp in the input box and delete it. 

In addition, the chat module also allows you to hyperlink documents automatically. If you type in an exact Bates number into the chat, the number will turn blue to indicate a linked document. For documents with an empty Bates prefix, type at least six digits, adding any leading zeros if necessary; for example, to hyperlink a document with the begin Bates number “151,” type “000151” to trigger hyperlinking. If you click that document reference, you will be automatically taken to a document preview in which you can edit its Story date, description, relevance, and labels.

To export the chat transcript and timestamps to a TXT file, click the caret icon on the Chat module tab. 

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Tasks 

Before, during, or after a deposition, you can create and assign tasks for yourself and others, set due dates, filter tasks, and track completed tasks. A task includes a description, a checkbox to indicate completion, an assignee, and a due date. 

Task permissions

Project administrators, users with Storybuilder Admin permissions, and users with Edit permissions on the Deposition object have full task permissions. This means they can view and edit all created, completed, and assigned tasks for every user on that Deposition. 

If you are an organization admin, but not explicitly added to the project, you can view and edit all tasks, but you cannot assign yourself to a task.

If you have View permissions on the Deposition, you can view all tasks but can only complete ones assigned to you. You cannot edit the tasks themselves or create new tasks. 

All users with any access to the Deposition can sort, filter, and show/hide completed tasks. 

Create, edit, complete a task

To create a task, type into the text bar of the Task module and press Enter on your keyboard. By default, tasks you create will be assigned to you and will not include a due date.

You can rename it by clicking into task description, typing in the new task description, and pressing Enter. 

To assign a task due date, click “(No due date),”specify the date and time, and click away from the widget. Due dates will be displayed according to local timezone. If the task was created with a due date of 3:00 PM in California, it will be displayed as 6:00 PM for a user who views the task in New York.

Clear the due date by clicking “Clear” on the top right of the dialog box. If your task is overdue, it will be indicated by red text.

To complete a task, simply click the box next to the task. If your completed tasks are hidden, they will disappear from view. Otherwise, the description will receive a strikethrough. 

Assign tasks

To re-assign the task to another person, click the user profile bubble and choose the user you want to assign the tasks to from the drop-down menu. You can also unassign the task by clicking the “Clear” button.

Task display

To filter or sort your tasks, navigate to the top of the Tasks tab. By default, tasks are sorted by earliest due date to latest due date.  You can sort by due date, date added, and who the task is assigned to. Please note that this view is specific to only you.

By default, all tasks are displayed regardless of who created them or who they’re assigned to. You can adjust which tasks you see by clicking “All” and filtering by tasks created by you, or assigned to you.

You can hide completed tasks from your list by clicking “Hide completed tasks” on the bottom of the Tasks module. It also displays the number of total completed tasks, within the parentheses.

Delete tasks

If you want to delete the task, click the due date of each task and you’ll find the trashcan icon. Only users with edit, share, and delete permissions will be able to carry out this action.

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