Preparing for a deposition comes down to knowing the record cold, rehearsing the discipline of answering only what’s asked, and protecting yourself outside the room while the case is pending. Everything you say is under oath, transcribed word for word, and usable against you at trial. The work you do in the days and weeks before you sit down at the table is what determines whether the transcript helps your case or hurts it.
What a Deposition Actually Is
A deposition is sworn testimony taken during the discovery phase of a lawsuit, usually in a lawyer’s office or conference room rather than a courtroom. You (the deponent), attorneys for each side, and a court reporter or videographer are in the room. Once you’re sworn in, the opposing attorney asks questions and the court reporter creates a verbatim transcript. Your own attorney may follow up afterward.
If you’re a party to the lawsuit, you must attend when you receive proper written notice stating the time, place, and who will be deposed.1Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 30 – Depositions by Oral Examination Skipping it after proper notice exposes you to sanctions that can include having facts treated as established against you, being barred from presenting evidence on specific issues, having your pleadings struck, or default judgment. The court must also order you or your attorney to pay the other side’s reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, unless the failure was substantially justified.2Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 37 – Failure to Make Disclosures or to Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions
Review the Documents and Your Own Timeline
Start with your own memory of events: dates, times, who was present, what was said, and the order in which things happened. Attorneys test whether your recollection is consistent, so walk through the timeline more than once and find your own gaps before the other side does.
Then gather every document that could come up. Contracts, emails, text messages, medical records, financial statements, photographs, and any correspondence tied to the case are all fair game. Pay particular attention to anything you wrote or signed, because you’ll be expected to explain it. If your case involves technical material or large volumes of records, organize them so you can find specific items quickly.
Practice With Your Attorney
Meet with your lawyer well before the deposition date. A good preparation session covers the likely areas of questioning, the difficult questions you should expect, and at least one practice run in question-and-answer format. Rehearsal isn’t about scripting answers. It’s about surfacing habits you didn’t know you had: rambling, guessing at dates, filling silences, volunteering information nobody asked for. Once you can hear those habits in yourself, you can stop doing them on the record.
Stay Off Social Media and Away From Other Witnesses
Do not post anything about your case, your injuries, the lawsuit, or the other parties. Social media posts are discoverable, and deleted posts are still stored on the platform’s servers. If the opposing attorney subpoenas your accounts, those posts resurface, often in the most damaging possible framing. Assume anything you put online during the case will be read aloud in a deposition or courtroom.
Don’t discuss the substance of your testimony with other witnesses either. If the opposing attorney learns that two witnesses coordinated their stories, that becomes a line of questioning designed to undermine both of you. Talk about the case with your attorney, not with friends, family, or co-workers who might also be deposed.
How to Answer Questions on the Day
The single most important rule: listen to the entire question, pause, and answer only what was asked. Depositions feel conversational by design. The opposing attorney wants you relaxed enough to volunteer information, drift into tangents, or fill uncomfortable silences. A truthful, complete, short answer is almost always the best answer.
If a question is confusing, say so and ask the attorney to rephrase it. You aren’t obligated to guess what they meant. If you don’t know, say “I don’t know.” If you don’t remember, say “I don’t recall.” Both are acceptable when honest. Using them as a dodge backfires when the transcript is reviewed later, because the opposing side will often have documents showing you were involved.
Stay calm even when the questioning turns aggressive or repetitive. Losing your composure on the record gives the other side material to use. Ask for a break if you need one; you’re entitled to reasonable breaks. Be aware that some courts restrict what you can discuss with your attorney during breaks while a question is pending. The safest practice is to avoid substantive conversations with your lawyer during any pause in testimony, other than whether to assert a privilege.
Handling Exhibits
The opposing attorney will hand you documents during questioning, and the court reporter will mark them as numbered exhibits. Take your time reading each one before answering. Don’t assume you know what it says because you’ve seen it before. Read the specific portion the attorney points you to, and make sure your answer matches what’s actually on the page rather than what you remember it saying.
When You Can Refuse to Answer
The default rule is that you answer every question, even if your attorney objects. Objections get noted on the record and the court sorts them out later. This surprises many first-time deponents because it’s the opposite of what television shows.
Your attorney can instruct you not to answer in only three situations: when the question seeks information protected by a legal privilege such as attorney-client privilege, when a court has already ordered a specific limitation on the deposition, or when your attorney needs to suspend the deposition to move to terminate it for bad faith or harassment.1Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 30 – Depositions by Oral Examination Outside those three narrow grounds, “my attorney told me not to answer” is not a valid response and can lead to sanctions. If your attorney starts an objection, wait for it to finish and then answer unless you’re specifically told not to.
Preparing for a Remote Deposition
Parties can agree, or a court can order, that a deposition be conducted by telephone or videoconference. In that case, the deposition is legally considered to take place wherever you are physically sitting when you answer, not where the attorneys are.1Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 30 – Depositions by Oral Examinationp>
If you’re appearing remotely, your environment is part of your preparation. Choose a quiet, well-lit room with a neutral background. Put the camera at eye level so your face is clearly visible. Silence your phone and close any browser tabs or applications that produce notifications. Visible stacks of documents behind you or other people passing through the frame look unprofessional on the record. Every rule about truthfulness, answering only what’s asked, and not volunteering information applies exactly as it would in person.
Extra Preparation if You’re Testifying for a Company
When a lawsuit is against a company, the opposing side can notice a deposition under Rule 30(b)(6) and list the topics they want covered. The company designates one or more people to testify on its behalf about those topics.1Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 30 – Depositions by Oral Examination This is a fundamentally different job than testifying about what you personally saw or did.
As a corporate representative you’re speaking for the organization, and you must testify about information known or reasonably available to the company. You can’t just show up with your personal knowledge. Preparation means reviewing internal documents, talking to other employees, examining the company’s interrogatory answers, and assembling the organization’s position on each noticed topic. Answering “I don’t know” to a question about the company’s own knowledge is far more damaging here than in an individual deposition, because it can be treated as the company having no answer at all. Be ready to explain exactly what steps you took to prepare, because the opposing attorney will almost certainly ask.
After the Deposition: Reviewing the Transcript
If you or any party requests it before the deposition ends, you get 30 days after the court reporter notifies you the transcript is ready to review it for errors.1Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 30 – Depositions by Oral Examination The request has to happen before the deposition concludes, so make sure your attorney puts it on the record. If no one asks, you may lose the right to review.
During those 30 days you can submit an errata sheet listing changes and the reason for each. The rule allows changes “in form or substance,” but how far you can push depends on the court. Some courts allow substantive corrections; others treat an errata sheet that contradicts your original testimony as a sham and strike it. In most federal circuits, the original answers stay on the record regardless of what you change, and the opposing side can still use those initial responses to challenge your credibility. Treat the deposition itself as your one chance to get the testimony right, not as a draft you can fix later.
The transcript matters because any party can use it to contradict or impeach you if your later testimony changes.3Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 32 – Using Depositions in Court Proceedings If you say one thing in the deposition and something different at trial, the opposing attorney reads your deposition answer back to you in front of the jury. That is where careless deposition answers do the most damage, and it is the reason preparation matters as much as it does.