Ian Hardy - July 1, 2011

It’s happening: you have an important deposition scheduled to take place in a foreign country, and you’ve wisely followed all of the advice on this blog. You’ve found a great local court reporter, with experience working in the country of your deposition. You’ve acted far in advance to line up travel for the attorneys: visas, hotels, everything. Opposing counsel has agreed to make the necessary stipulations as to swearing in the witness. The judge is on board with your plan. You’ve even found the perfect location to hold your depo and all parties have been appropriately noticed. Perhaps you’ve worked with an experienced global agency such as ours to make everything easier.
Are you done yet? Well, you might not want to break out the champagne and pop the corks right away… Did you remember the exhibits?
Moving Mountains (of documents) Across Global Frontiers
Some depositions don’t have a lot of paperwork to plan for, and attorneys can easily bring the necessary exhibits with them on the plane. Often times, however — especially when you’re talking about big international, multi-day depos — the exhibits and associated paperwork can add up to a mountain-sized pile of documents. And you need those documents to arrive safely in your deposition country abroad. If those exhibits don’t get to the right place, on-time, just imagine the consequences: your attorneys will have absolutely nothing to argue about! (not to mention the possibility that, if you’re the person who was in charge of organizing the depos, you may find yourself very soon with absolutely no job!)
When you’re dealing with mountains of exhibit documents, how can you best move those mountains across global frontiers?
There are several answers to this question, depending on the kind of country you’re working in, the relative quantity of exhibit pages, and your budget.  See them…in Part II.