The remote deposition has become a leading litigation tool for moving cases forward during the current coronavirus pandemic.
Remote depositions are an efficient means of obtaining discovery at a time when few are able or willing to travel or gather in groups. More importantly, the reality for litigators today is that it is very difficult to obtain a continuance until some future date when the public health crisis will abate sufficiently to allow in-person depositions to resume. Courts have embraced remote technology, and they want attorneys to use it. In a recent representative case, magistrate Judge Jeffrey T. Gilbert summarily rejects nearly a dozen familiar arguments against remote depositions (PDF). In Re Chicken Broiler Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:16-cv-08637 (N.D. Ill.).
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