Before I became a Certified Legal Video Specialist, I had no idea how important it was to follow guidelines for a legal videographer when capturing a deposition. Video depositions have their own unique protocols and not all videographers are trained and experienced with this type of work.
Most attorneys are not aware of the importance of hiring a certified legal videographer. For instance, CLVS videographers follow a code of ethics and 63 ‘Standards for a Video Deposition‘ that have been established by the National Court Reporters Association for the legal video community. These standards cover everything from the deposition rules to video camera settings to lighting, audio mixing, event logging and production to confidentiality preservation.
For instance, legal videographers will partner with court reporters to ensure the integrity of both the video of the legal proceedings and the official transcript are accurate. This would be most important when showing the video deposition with captioning to the jury in a courtroom.
Some non-CLVS videographers will just capture the deposition on a small, cheap camera and create a simple DVD copy on site. These are known as ‘catch and release’ videographers.
A CLVS videographer will capture the deposition on a professional camera with appropriate audio mixing, then encode the video to an acceptable format and produce it to a DVD or MPEG deliverable. This way there is no loss of resolution and the video can be easily imported into a trial presentation software.
At Bruce Legal Video, we have over 15 years of experience and employ Certified Legal Video Specialists (CLVS) who have conducted video depositions in the U.S. and internationally.
The Certified Legal Video Specialist (CLVS) program is a certification course offered by the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA). The program sets standards for competency in the capture, utilization, and retention of legal video and promotes awareness of these standards within the legal video community. It also involves a three-step certification process that measures and validates the legal video professional’s expertise and skills in producing video in a legal environment.
Hiring a certified legal videographer in Florida that uses the newest audio and video technology ensures that the deposition meets the high standards you as a legal professional expect. An attorney would certainly prefer that a video deposition not be played to the jury that was captured in standard definition; along with audio recorded straight from the camera. This would be like playing a VHS tape made in the 80’s.
You can expect a certified legal videographer to capture a deposition in high definition with clear audio from several microphones and a professional audio mixer.
Does the legal video provider furnish the following basic equipment?
- professional high-definition camcorder
- four or more wired and wireless lapel microphones
- microphone mixer
- professional lighting gear
- professional background
In 2021, the year of the remote deposition has come upon us. In this new way of capturing testimony, a CLVS is keenly familiar with the streaming methods of a zoom deposition. This comes in handy when producing testimony over the internet instead of in person.
Bruce Legal Video 
Thanks for explaining why it’s good to get a legal video specialist. I hadn’t considered that they can capture the deposition in a way that can be easily important into a presentation software. This seems very important so that no data is missing and everything is clear for the trial.