Ending Citation Frustration
Perfectly formatted testimony from depositions to your motion in one click.
Copying and pasting is probably the most important and perhaps the most widely used function on any computer today. Copy/paste is so commonplace and so easy to do, we typically don’t give it a second’s thought. But, for lawyers, this seemingly simple task often ends up taking on a life of its own. Why? Let’s take a look at what happens when you copy testimony from a deposition – and paste it into a motion. First, we’ll look at how you’d typically do that and then, how to do so with MasterFile’s Drafting Minion.
What’s the big deal? I know how to copy and paste!
We’re sure you do. And likely an expert. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is formatting.
No matter what you try, weird things begin to happen the moment you paste a selection from a deposition. And you’ll need at least 6 separate (and convoluted) steps to get the text the way you want. Here’s the short list:
- Check and fix
- extra lines
- lines shifted down between others
- lines in the wrong place.
- Get rid of deposition line numbers (OK, they look good on a transcript, but that’s not the look you’d want in your motion or brief).
- Remove unnecessary line breaks. To your chagrin, the moment you remove those deposition line numbers, each Q and A paragraph is no longer a paragraph but a set of lines of differing length. You’ll definitely need to remove any line breaks to make sure everything wraps nicely.
- Fix Q & A spacing. Unfortunately for you, there’s only a space between the Q and A on a court reporter’s transcript. So you have to manually fix and add tabs after each Q and each A.
- Align formatting to set block quotes. Unfortunately, that also means you might have to fix line breaks yet again.
- Add the citation. That means adding the deponent’s last name, and the section’s page and line numbers, at the end of the section of text.
Total time to copy, paste and format: about 3 – 4 minutes per citation.
Rinse and repeat.
What’s different about MasterFile? Our Drafting Minion!
Since any relevant deposition sections would already have set and marked as key extracts during review, all you need to do is:
- Select the section (i.e. extract) you want and then wake up MasterFile’s Drafting Minion.
- Switch to your motion, right click and select paste, or press Ctrl-v.
Total time to copy, paste and format a citation in your brief: about 15 seconds.
Have a look.
When you use MasterFile’s Drafting Minion, deposition extracts are automatically formatted for you. All troublesome line and page numbers and unnecessary line breaks are removed, formatting and spacing is corrected for each Q & A, and a citation added to the end of the text. Live links back to the original source in MasterFile are added for quick reference too – which you can delete if you no longer need them.
Instead of 6 or more steps, copy and paste is back to what it should be.
Manage your evidence, disclosures, production, case chronologies and case analysis more efficiently and more effectively in MasterFile. Win more – and have an easier time doing so!
See how MasterFile can help your firm.
