Friday, May 21, 2010

Videoconference Appellate Argument Website

We recently ran across a nice web page by the public affairs TV channel, C-SPAN that was created for the Arar v. Ashcroft oral arguments before the US Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  There are a couple of interesting technical presentation ideas presented on the web page.

First, they have created a time-synchronization presentation between the written and video transcript that makes it easy to navigate through the argument.

Second, now Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, is participating via a videoconference link.  The presiding judge has some kind of signal from her when she needs to interrupt to ask a question.

The web page can be viewed at Arar v. Ashcroft argument web page at C-SPAN.

Lawyer Uses YouTube for Video Depositions

Thanks to our good friend Jim Drubert in Montgomery County, Ohio we learned of an attorney using YouTube to store the video portion of their electronic pleading.  According to the Maryland Daily Record in an article published on May 17, 2010 the Louisiana Lawyer:
"John Denenea, Jr. has essentially incorporated the video deposition into his opposition to summary judgment. As most lawyers know, a video deposition can be much more effective than the transcribed version because the viewer can observe witness behavior, including those long pauses before answering questions that do not appear on the transcribed version."
The article: Filing civil pleadings on YouTube contains links to the pleadings and one of the videos.