How Not to Behave in a Deposition

I find myself frequently lamenting the decline of civility and good manners. There are some temp workers in my office building who have yet to figure out that letting passengers off of the elevator before you pile in is not only polite, but common sense. When we went to see the Nutcracker  people were coming in a full 15 minutes after the performance began, never mind that floor seats started at $50. And at the twins' orchestra concert I received an unbelievably rude response from an grandfatherly type when I politely asked him to quit talking during the performances.

So I don't have great expectations from the general public.  But I do expect better from attorneys in a deposition. I guess those expectations are misplaced, too.

I spent three days last week in depositions in a big multi-party case.  The room was packed with lawyers.  On the second day, one older lawyer asked another attorney if he could borrow her laptop to check on something during a break.  She generously agreed, and he proceeded to dominate her laptop during the rest of the deposition.  The third day he again commandeered her laptop. And then he started talking.  Through the entire deposition, while the poor court reporter was trying to focus and take down the testimony of the deponent. At one point he took a phone call right in the middle of the deposition--without bothering to get up and leave! All the while typing as loudly as humanly possible on the laptop that wasn't his.

He was oblivious to the shaking heads and pointed looks directed at him, and I was surprised nobody said anything.  (I was close to it, but I didn't want to further disturb the questioning.)

At the end of the day he thanked the lawyer from whom he had borrowed the laptop for allowing him to ensure he got his desired tee time!  She asked if he was going to bring his own laptop to the next round of depos, but he said it was too much trouble. Of course it's much easier to just take over someone else's stuff.

Honestly, my children behave better than this "professional" who was obsessing over his golf game on his client's dime.