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Being Deposed
Jul. 30th, 2005 01:19 pmA couple of my former employers are involved in a lawsuit, resulting in dozens of former employees and other innocent bystanders being "asked" to give "voluntary" depositions (I have been given to understand that these things are voluntary only in the sense that if you refuse they will serve you with a subpoena, at which point it ceases to be voluntary). It's an imposition, since the lawyers just expect you to take time off from work and make your way downtown at their convenience. Other than that, it's not that bad. The month of July has turned out to be a very slack time at work, slack to the point of boring. Frankly, spending a day reminiscing about past workplaces was more entertaining than sitting around the office reading project requirements and getting my testbed cleaned up in preparation for the next project.
This could happen to any of you, by the way. Companies are forever suing each other, often for the flimsiest of reasons. If you didn't engage in any wrongdoing you probably won't get in trouble, but any email or document that you ever wrote or signed during the course of your employment could resurface years from now in a legal document. Just something to be aware of as you go about your daily business. This case is one of the sillier ones. I couldn't understand how the principals of Company A had managed to talk even the hungriest lawyers into taking their case on contingency (e.g., they only get paid if they win). After the deposition, I realized that it's because high tech was involved and the lawyers were utterly clueless about what either company did. I suppose if the judge is equally clueless, the ruling could go their way just by chance. But more likely it will get tossed out, like the last two lawsuits between two of my former employers.
In any case, here's how a deposition works. The basic concept is that a witness is being questioned under oath by the attorney for the opposing side, with the entire exchange transcribed by a court reporter. This produces a document that can be used in subsequent legal proceedings. If the case goes to trial (which most do not, ultimately) the witness will probably be called in to testify in person, most often to confirm or expand upon items already covered in the deposition. [any lawyers in the audience feel free to correct me if I got it wrong.]
Step 1) You visit your lawyer at his law office for a prep session. He (or she, but mine was a he) shows you a videotape that amounts to "How NOT to Give a Deposition." Listen carefully to the question and count to 3 before answering. Don't volunteer information. Don't fall for trick questions. Don't make stuff up. Then he fills you in on the status of the case, maybe shows you some documents that you are likely to see at the deposition, tells you what he thinks the opposing lawyer is likely to be interested in, and adds his own deposition tips to what you saw in the videotape. This part was totally fun. The law firm is a prominent one, which means they are on a high floor of a VERY lovely downtown skyscraper with beautiful natural wood and floor to ceiling views. I liked my lawyer - smart, easy-going, sense of humor. He'd been working on this case (and another related one) for so long that he had picked up quite a bit of the technical jargon and was interested in my attempts to teach him a few more of the basic networking concepts that might be useful to know in this case. The videotape was amusing and genuinely helpful.
Step 2) You make the downtown trek again, the next day in my case, to the opposing law firm's office, where you are ushered into a conference room with your lawyer, the opposing lawyer, and a court reporter taking notes on an electronicized version of those funny little steno machines that court reporters have been using for the last 100 years. Although this law firm is notably less prominent than the other one (reception area attractive, but much less expensive than the other) they also have breathtaking downtown views in their conference rooms. An important point, since I was going to spend the next 7 hours in that room.
Step 3) You take an oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. I don't think God was mentioned.
Step 4) The opposing lawyer starts out with some background info. She (or he, but in my case it was a she), may present an old resume or employment agreement to jog your memory. In my case, she had somehow obtained just the first page of a 3-page resume from 1999. Needless to say, it was missing quite a bit. So she asked me to give my employment history "starting after high school." Well, ok, fine. Let's see, I had a couple of jobs at college - grading papers, dorm cafeteria. One summer I worked at Szon's Rib Shop. Another summer.... "This is going to take quite a while..." I said (breaking the rule against volunteering info). She gulped and amended her question. "How about if we stick to the, um, major ones...?" So I started again, this time in 1976 with my computer science degree. It still took quite a while.
Step 5) Facts of the case, events and people. This is as good a time as any to point out that the events pertinent to this case took place in 1999 and 2000, 3 and 4 jobs into the past for me. So, as you may well imagine, it was hard to give much of an answer to things like, "Do you recall what the company president said in the All-Hands Meeting on November 2, 1999?" Actually, it's fairly easy to answer questions like that. "No." But I really did my best on questions like, "When was the last time you talked to ...?" I was starting to get that blast from the past effect, as you start thinking about people that you really haven't thought about for years. There were some long pauses here as I unarchived memories of little reunion events and lunches over the past few years.
Step 6) The opposing lawyer pulls out a large stack of documents and presents them one by one, asking something like "Do you recognize this document?" In most cases, my first answer was "No." We would then proceed to "Is that your signature on the approval line?" or "Do you have any reason to believe that you did NOT see/write this email?" Well, okay, when I examined the documents in question most of them started to look at least vaguely familiar. Yes, I know I did see at least one draft of this requirements document, although I could not say for sure that I closely read this particular draft. This is the way you are supposed to answer deposition questions - very precisely and cautiously. It is also the way I am used to answering tricky questions in the work setting with regard to my work as a tester. ("Yes, that feature has been made to work at least once. That is not quite the same thing as proving that it always works.") So, it turns out that one of the communication skills I have had to learn in my work has crossover value as a legal witness. Who knew?
Once we had established that there was a pretty good chance that I had seen/written the document in question, the lawyer proceeded with more detailed questions. What a trip down memory lane! I have to say that this was quite enjoyable, as I had to dredge up memories I hadn't consulted for years. I liked working at both companies, especially the second one, and it was fun being reminded of things like the insane scramble to get all the boards working in time for a major performance benchmark, all those scrawled notes in the lab notebook about one thing after another going wrong, and then finally getting it all working 2 days before the drop-dead deadline! It's funny the things you remember and the things you don't. I was absolutely unable to remember if I attended the fall Interop in 1999. The evidence strongly suggests that I did, and I know I attended at least one Interop in Atlanta, but I just couldn't remember if I had been to that one.
Once we got to the "random email" portion of the evidence I was up to my neck in nostalgia. The lawyers had chosen a dozen or so emails that I had either sent or received while working at Company B, totally at random as far as I could see. They would plop a disconnected email in front of me that was clearly out of the middle of an ongoing technical discussion and then ask me what it meant. I was increasingly distracted by the cc: list ("Aw, I wonder what Steve is doing these days? Wow, Mike, I'd totally forgotten about him; what a sweetheart..."). No, I didn't say those things out loud (I don't think), but it made the proceedings go slower and slower as my brain frantically worked to unarchive information about all those people I used to know and the work I was so deeply immersed in but haven't thought of for years. After perusing the email for awhile, I'd come back to the present with a jerk and ask, "Uh, what was the question?" In the case of one particularly arcane email exchange that had taken me at least 5 minutes to understand, the question was "Can you explain in layman's terms what this email is about?" I'm afraid I burst out laughing, and said, "I was afraid you were going to ask that." Then I gathered my thoughts and explained, patiently and to the best of my ability, in layman's terms, the bug I had found and why I was dissatisfied with the developer's explanation of the behavior. I stopped when the lawyer's eyes glazed over. "So.... was this bug ever fixed?" she asked. "I have no idea," I replied. "You would have to look in the bug database. I'm sure you have it someplace." She declined to pursue the matter. *heh*
Amusingly enough, the real point of the email or document was more often than not something that worked totally AGAINST the interests of Company A. Another indication that their product was light-years way from ever actually working, for instance. The lawyer deposing me actually asked almost every question that my lawyer had been planning to ask later. So, when all was said and done, my lawyer was happy with my performance. He said that I did tend to ramble a little bit (I'd warned him that I have that little, um, failing), but that I never said anything that I didn't intend to say or anything that compromised the case, and never left any ambiguity about what my answers meant. He said I was "precise in a sloppy way," which was evidently meant as a compliment when compared to the alternative.
The entire thing was unbelievably mentally exhausting. Not unpleasant at all, but draining. Fun, even. But once is enough. I hope the case gets dismissed and I don't have to go through the whole thing again on the stand.
This could happen to any of you, by the way. Companies are forever suing each other, often for the flimsiest of reasons. If you didn't engage in any wrongdoing you probably won't get in trouble, but any email or document that you ever wrote or signed during the course of your employment could resurface years from now in a legal document. Just something to be aware of as you go about your daily business. This case is one of the sillier ones. I couldn't understand how the principals of Company A had managed to talk even the hungriest lawyers into taking their case on contingency (e.g., they only get paid if they win). After the deposition, I realized that it's because high tech was involved and the lawyers were utterly clueless about what either company did. I suppose if the judge is equally clueless, the ruling could go their way just by chance. But more likely it will get tossed out, like the last two lawsuits between two of my former employers.
In any case, here's how a deposition works. The basic concept is that a witness is being questioned under oath by the attorney for the opposing side, with the entire exchange transcribed by a court reporter. This produces a document that can be used in subsequent legal proceedings. If the case goes to trial (which most do not, ultimately) the witness will probably be called in to testify in person, most often to confirm or expand upon items already covered in the deposition. [any lawyers in the audience feel free to correct me if I got it wrong.]
Step 1) You visit your lawyer at his law office for a prep session. He (or she, but mine was a he) shows you a videotape that amounts to "How NOT to Give a Deposition." Listen carefully to the question and count to 3 before answering. Don't volunteer information. Don't fall for trick questions. Don't make stuff up. Then he fills you in on the status of the case, maybe shows you some documents that you are likely to see at the deposition, tells you what he thinks the opposing lawyer is likely to be interested in, and adds his own deposition tips to what you saw in the videotape. This part was totally fun. The law firm is a prominent one, which means they are on a high floor of a VERY lovely downtown skyscraper with beautiful natural wood and floor to ceiling views. I liked my lawyer - smart, easy-going, sense of humor. He'd been working on this case (and another related one) for so long that he had picked up quite a bit of the technical jargon and was interested in my attempts to teach him a few more of the basic networking concepts that might be useful to know in this case. The videotape was amusing and genuinely helpful.
Step 2) You make the downtown trek again, the next day in my case, to the opposing law firm's office, where you are ushered into a conference room with your lawyer, the opposing lawyer, and a court reporter taking notes on an electronicized version of those funny little steno machines that court reporters have been using for the last 100 years. Although this law firm is notably less prominent than the other one (reception area attractive, but much less expensive than the other) they also have breathtaking downtown views in their conference rooms. An important point, since I was going to spend the next 7 hours in that room.
Step 3) You take an oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. I don't think God was mentioned.
Step 4) The opposing lawyer starts out with some background info. She (or he, but in my case it was a she), may present an old resume or employment agreement to jog your memory. In my case, she had somehow obtained just the first page of a 3-page resume from 1999. Needless to say, it was missing quite a bit. So she asked me to give my employment history "starting after high school." Well, ok, fine. Let's see, I had a couple of jobs at college - grading papers, dorm cafeteria. One summer I worked at Szon's Rib Shop. Another summer.... "This is going to take quite a while..." I said (breaking the rule against volunteering info). She gulped and amended her question. "How about if we stick to the, um, major ones...?" So I started again, this time in 1976 with my computer science degree. It still took quite a while.
Step 5) Facts of the case, events and people. This is as good a time as any to point out that the events pertinent to this case took place in 1999 and 2000, 3 and 4 jobs into the past for me. So, as you may well imagine, it was hard to give much of an answer to things like, "Do you recall what the company president said in the All-Hands Meeting on November 2, 1999?" Actually, it's fairly easy to answer questions like that. "No." But I really did my best on questions like, "When was the last time you talked to ...?" I was starting to get that blast from the past effect, as you start thinking about people that you really haven't thought about for years. There were some long pauses here as I unarchived memories of little reunion events and lunches over the past few years.
Step 6) The opposing lawyer pulls out a large stack of documents and presents them one by one, asking something like "Do you recognize this document?" In most cases, my first answer was "No." We would then proceed to "Is that your signature on the approval line?" or "Do you have any reason to believe that you did NOT see/write this email?" Well, okay, when I examined the documents in question most of them started to look at least vaguely familiar. Yes, I know I did see at least one draft of this requirements document, although I could not say for sure that I closely read this particular draft. This is the way you are supposed to answer deposition questions - very precisely and cautiously. It is also the way I am used to answering tricky questions in the work setting with regard to my work as a tester. ("Yes, that feature has been made to work at least once. That is not quite the same thing as proving that it always works.") So, it turns out that one of the communication skills I have had to learn in my work has crossover value as a legal witness. Who knew?
Once we had established that there was a pretty good chance that I had seen/written the document in question, the lawyer proceeded with more detailed questions. What a trip down memory lane! I have to say that this was quite enjoyable, as I had to dredge up memories I hadn't consulted for years. I liked working at both companies, especially the second one, and it was fun being reminded of things like the insane scramble to get all the boards working in time for a major performance benchmark, all those scrawled notes in the lab notebook about one thing after another going wrong, and then finally getting it all working 2 days before the drop-dead deadline! It's funny the things you remember and the things you don't. I was absolutely unable to remember if I attended the fall Interop in 1999. The evidence strongly suggests that I did, and I know I attended at least one Interop in Atlanta, but I just couldn't remember if I had been to that one.
Once we got to the "random email" portion of the evidence I was up to my neck in nostalgia. The lawyers had chosen a dozen or so emails that I had either sent or received while working at Company B, totally at random as far as I could see. They would plop a disconnected email in front of me that was clearly out of the middle of an ongoing technical discussion and then ask me what it meant. I was increasingly distracted by the cc: list ("Aw, I wonder what Steve is doing these days? Wow, Mike, I'd totally forgotten about him; what a sweetheart..."). No, I didn't say those things out loud (I don't think), but it made the proceedings go slower and slower as my brain frantically worked to unarchive information about all those people I used to know and the work I was so deeply immersed in but haven't thought of for years. After perusing the email for awhile, I'd come back to the present with a jerk and ask, "Uh, what was the question?" In the case of one particularly arcane email exchange that had taken me at least 5 minutes to understand, the question was "Can you explain in layman's terms what this email is about?" I'm afraid I burst out laughing, and said, "I was afraid you were going to ask that." Then I gathered my thoughts and explained, patiently and to the best of my ability, in layman's terms, the bug I had found and why I was dissatisfied with the developer's explanation of the behavior. I stopped when the lawyer's eyes glazed over. "So.... was this bug ever fixed?" she asked. "I have no idea," I replied. "You would have to look in the bug database. I'm sure you have it someplace." She declined to pursue the matter. *heh*
Amusingly enough, the real point of the email or document was more often than not something that worked totally AGAINST the interests of Company A. Another indication that their product was light-years way from ever actually working, for instance. The lawyer deposing me actually asked almost every question that my lawyer had been planning to ask later. So, when all was said and done, my lawyer was happy with my performance. He said that I did tend to ramble a little bit (I'd warned him that I have that little, um, failing), but that I never said anything that I didn't intend to say or anything that compromised the case, and never left any ambiguity about what my answers meant. He said I was "precise in a sloppy way," which was evidently meant as a compliment when compared to the alternative.
The entire thing was unbelievably mentally exhausting. Not unpleasant at all, but draining. Fun, even. But once is enough. I hope the case gets dismissed and I don't have to go through the whole thing again on the stand.
