I received a call the night before from David, asking if I'd want to go out the next day. I had something planned for August 19, but I figured what the heck -- I could sure use the hours!
We ended up at D.C. Corporation Counsel, which handles all sorts of cases for the District of Columbia government. The case we were there was a traffic accident involving a truck driven by a city employee.
When we got there, we found out that we were not the only reporters there! It turned out that the other side (plaintiff) had asked for a court reporter to be there to take a deposition before ours. Because David is a consummate professional, we were there well in advance of our depo, and, in fact, in advance of the other depo.
As we got the misunderstanding cleared up, there were introductions all around. David and I sat down to wait for the first depo to be over, and then John, the other court reporter, poked his head around and asked if I, as an intern, would like to sit in on his deposition as well. Of course, I jumped up and skeedaddled into the room where the deposition was going to take place, surprised and happy at the thought.
The surroundings were not glamorous -- it was as basic a little interrogation room as you could look for, hot and crowded. The material, though, was totally familiar. I could scarcely believe that all the traffic-accident dictation we did in school really, truly does sound like the real thing! "In what lane were you traveling at that time?" "How fast was the van going when you saw him?" Stuff like that.
After the first deposition by the plaintiff's attorney of the city employee, D.C. counsel took the deposition of the plaintiff. As I wrote on the message boards, I was tickled to find that, shortly after announcing on the message boards that I didn't think I'd ever used a medial "he" in phrasing, I found myself confronte with a sentence along the lines of, "Do you remember where he was when you made the turn?" Something like that. The important thing was that I was trailing just a skinch more than was comfortable, and while I wasn't in deep trouble, I was looking for some breathing room. At up ahead, I suddenly saw not just the "do you remember (DAOURM)" phrase, but that I could phrase "where he was (WREFS)" And ta-da! My first "professional" medial "he" phrase!
Lessons Learned:You really don't know what type of physical environment you're going to be in -- it's not all lush conference rooms with standard typing chairs out there.
I'd always known my mentors were special people in their willingness to help out and answer questions on the days I was assigned with them. It was lovely to see that someone who was not "my mentor" still thought about giving an intern reporter just a little bit more experience, as well.
It's not good to try to incorporate every possible brief and every possible phrase into your writing, but having heard about concepts, maybe one of the ones that has not been used will surface at the appropriate time.
Would you like to go to the next internship experience or return to the main page of the Court Reporting Students' Online Support Center?