Litigation Lawyers in Anderson County

Depositions are part of the discovery process in Anderson County, South Carolina civil litigation.

"Discovery" is a process that occurs before a trial in Anderson County, South Carolina. During the discovery process, both sides are required to make relevant information available to each other.

One of the most effective ways to get information relevant to a lawsuit in Anderson County, South Carolina is to conduct a deposition of a party who you believe to be privy to that information. A deposition is a Q&A session between an attorney representing one of the parties to a lawsuit, and someone who has knowledge relevant to the lawsuit. This can be one of the parties, or a witness. The person being deposed is sworn in, and must answer all of the questions presented to them under oath. An attorney representing the other side can object to lines of questioning, on every grounds that would be valid during in-court testimony. The purpose of this is primarily to get the objection on the record, but if it proves to be a major sticking point, a judge can rule on the objections later. If any questions are found to be invalid, the questions, and their answers, will not be shown to the jury during trial. This is much more effective than simply instructing the jury to disregard a question and answer they've already heard.

Conducting A Civil Deposition in Anderson County, South Carolina

Depositions in Anderson County, South Carolina serve a very important purpose: getting testimony on the record, and admitted as evidence, when there is some reason to suspect that the witness won't be able to appear in court during trial, because of health, potential incarceration, or any other reason.

Civil Depositions in Anderson County, South Carolina, can take a very long time to be completed, typically lasting several days, and sometimes going on for weeks. So, people who are called to give depositions in Anderson County, South Carolina should be prepared for some substantial inconvenience.

To help mitigate this inconvenience, Anderson County, South Carolina permits witnesses who are appearing in depositions to be paid a set amount of money for their time, and reimbursed for travel expenses. However, if there is any evidence that this money is being used to influence a witness' testimony, there is going to be a serious problem: this would amount bribery, and it is a serious offense.

If you are called to a deposition in Anderson County, South Carolina, it's absolutely imperative that you answer all the questions truthfully, to the best of your knowledge. When testifying in a deposition, you are under oath, just as you would be in open court. Deliberately lying in a deposition is perjury, which is a serious crime.

How Can A Anderson County, South Carolina Lawyer Help?

If you're a party to an Anderson County, South Carolina lawsuit and are required to appear at a deposition, one would hope that you've already retained a lawyer by this stage in the proceedings. Your attorney will have a lot of advice for you, which you should of course follow.

If you're not a party to the case, but have relevant information, you might be subpoenaed to appear in a deposition. In this case, you probably don't need to hire an Anderson County, South Carolina litigation attorney, but it would not be a bad idea to seek out a brief consultation with one, to get an idea of what to expect.