Update #2 (February 27, 2012): [Note from Editor: Depo International has contacted Minnesota Litigator and asked that its rates be removed from this post. Minnesota Litigator has voluntarily removed the pricing pursuant to the caller’s request. Suffice it to say that there is variation among fees/charges of court reporting agencies and lawyers and their clients may wish to inquire.]
Update (February 14, 2012): [Note from Editor: Someone from Integrity Court Reporting Inc. contacted the author of the post below and objected to the publication of its pricing and requested it be removed. Minnesota Litigator has voluntarily removed the pricing pursuant to the caller’s request.] (Original post after the jump.)
Original Post (February 13, 2012): The testimony obtained during depositions is where many litigators make their cases. Depositions by oral examination under Rule 30 gives attorneys the chance to question lay or expert witnesses under oath about what happened in a particular dispute. Because this type of testimony is so powerful and necessary in litigation (or, in some cases, because of volume discounts or other deals), many lawyers seem to stick with one court reporter or one litigation support provider. Because many lawyers are not responsible for paying court reporters, some might not pay much if any attention to how much their client will be charged for depositions.
As a new lawyer, I have no allegiance to a particular company (at least not yet) and wanted to find out how much it really costs to take a plain vanilla deposition here in the Twin Cities. I called and emailed several local companies inquiring about their prices. There many other providers but here is a survey of some well-known court reporting firms for a fairly common request:
- Deposition of a lay witness in the Twin Cities
- Would last from 9am – 5pm (1 hr break for lunch)
- Only court reporting (no video)
- I needed a paper copy as well as an e-copy
- No copy of the exhibits in the transcript
This is what I found:
|
Company |
Hourly Fee |
Per Page Fee |
Additional Fees |
Notes |
|
$45 |
$3.40 |
None |
||
|
|
Provided pricing list upon request but it was designated “Confidential”Prices were dependent on how fast a transcript was needed and what type of witness was being deposed. Prices were higher than the market | |||
|
|
$__ |
$____ |
Administrative Fee: $_; Shipping/Binding Fee: $__ | Would not disclose what the administrative fee was |
|
$___ |
$___ |
Must pay for shipping of transcript | ||
|
$42.50 |
$3.45 |
None |
Two hour minimum | |
Here are the prices for the deposition assuming there are seven hours of deposition testimony and 40 pages are transcribed per hour:
|
Company |
Hourly Fee |
Per Page Fee |
Total |
|
$297.50 |
$966 |
$1,263.50 |
|
|
$315 |
$952 |
$1,267 |
|
|
|
____ |
____ |
$___ Includes $__ Admin Fee and $__ Shipping/Binding Fee |
|
$___ |
$____ |
$___ |
|
|
|
Cannot disclose because prices are “Confidential” |
||
While this is an unscientific survey of the local court reporter landscape, Minnesota litigators (and Minnesota litigants) may find the variation of interest.
***Disclosure: Benchmark Reporting is a Minnesota Litigator advertiser but in no way influenced this post and was not even informed of it.