My Deposition Kit is an iPad

My deposition kit is an iPad. No cart, no binders, no box of duplicates.
 
I came up in a world of binder carts. On the defense side, getting ready for a deposition meant a paralegal building three-ring binders, tabbing exhibits, printing copies for the witness and opposing counsel and the court reporter, and someone wheeling it all in. A document out of order meant flipping pages while everyone waited.
 
I do not work that way anymore. Here is the unglamorous version of how it works.
 
The work happens the night before. I load every exhibit I might use into a trial-presentation app (I use TrialPad by LIT SOFTWARE), pre-marked and pre-numbered in the order I expect, with a second set sorted by topic in case the testimony goes somewhere I did not plan. The same document can live in three folders without printing anything.
 
In the room, when I am ready to introduce an exhibit, I tap it. It comes up on my screen and, if we are sharing, on a monitor or on remote participants' screens at the same instant. No flipping, no "give me a moment," no passing paper down the table. I can zoom into one paragraph, or put two documents side by side (the email and the policy it supposedly followed) and let the contrast do the work.
 
The part that sold me is the Apple Pencil. I mark up a document live, in front of the witness, while it is on the screen. I highlight the line I am asking about, circle a date, underline the sentence the witness just tried to walk away from. The markup is saved, so months later I know what I flagged and why.
 
And there is no cart. I walk in with a bag. That is the whole kit.
 
Now the honest part, because anyone who says the iPad wins every time is selling something.
 
Some witnesses do better with paper in their hands. An older or nervous witness often settles down with a document they can hold and flip at their own pace.
 
Some courtrooms and court reporters are not set up for screens. If the judge wants a paper copy for the bench, you bring paper. You do not fight the room over your workflow.
 
And batteries die. Paper never runs out of charge in the middle of a cross. The iPad is my primary tool, not my only one. I keep a charged backup and a printed set of the key exhibits in a thin folder.
 
So I am not paperless. I am mostly paperless, with paper in reserve for where it works better.
 
I did not switch to look modern. I switched because it makes me faster and sharper in the moment, and because the firm I run now does not have a floor of paralegals to wheel carts around. I represent workers, one at a time, against companies that usually have far more resources than my client. Anything that lets me move fast and keep the pressure on a witness is worth it.
 
The technology is not the point. The preparation is. The iPad just removes the friction between the work I have done and the moment I need it.

-CJMc

Document Your Interactions With Your Employer. Your Lawyer Will Thank You!

The most powerful evidence in an employment case is often something a worker wrote down at their kitchen table, by hand, the night it happened.

I spent years on the other side, defending companies. So let me tell you what makes a defense lawyer nervous, and it is not a polished memo a worker types up after they have already been fired and called a lawyer.

It is the contemporaneous note. The few lines someone jotted down the same evening, while it was fresh. Picture the kind of worker who keeps a small notebook at home and writes a few sentences each night after a hard day. The date. What was said. Who said it. What got promised. What changed after they raised a concern. Nothing dramatic, nothing rehearsed, just the plain facts while they still remembered them clearly.

Here is why that beats a memo written months later. Memory fades, and everyone knows it fades. A note made the same day carries a credibility that a tidy summary written after the fact never will. It is specific where memory has gone vague. And it lines up with calendars, texts, and emails in a way that is very hard to argue with.

So if something at work feels wrong, start writing it down. You do not need legal words. You do not need to know whether you have a case. Just record what happened, in your own plain language, close to when it happened.

A few practical things. Keep dates. Write down who said what, as close to word for word as you can. Note what you were promised and whether it held. And pay attention to what changes after you complain about something, because timing tells a story.

One more habit that costs you nothing. After a phone call or a sit-down with HR or your manager, send a short email right afterward that summarizes what was said. Something as simple as, "Just to confirm our conversation today, you told me X." That turns a verbal exchange into a timestamped, written record, and it puts the ball in their court. If they disagree with your version, they have the chance to write back and correct it. If they do not, their silence sits there as confirmation. Either way, you come out ahead.

Where you keep it matters too. Keep your notes on a personal device or at home, not on a work computer, a work phone, or a company account. Anything on a company system can disappear or stop being yours the day they decide it should.

I am telling you this whether or not you ever pick up the phone to call me. It is just good sense. The people who protect themselves best are usually the ones who started keeping a quiet, honest record long before anyone said the word lawyer.

-CJMc

Before you hire an employment lawyer in Texas, ask one question...

Before you hire an employment lawyer in Texas, ask one question: Will you actually file suit and litigate this case if we have to?
 
I spent the early part of my career on the corporate side. Big firms, corporate clients, the whole machine. So when I tell you how an employer decides what your case is worth, I am not guessing. I watched it from the inside for years.
 
There are two broad kinds of employment lawyer, and they can look identical from the outside. The first works the agency process, sends the employer a demand letter, and waits. If the company offers something, you take it. If not, the relationship quietly ends. Filing suit was never the plan. The second treats the charge and the demand letter as the opening steps of a case built, from day one, to be filed and litigated if the company will not pay fair value short of that.
 
Neither model is illegal. Neither makes the lawyer a bad person. But they produce very different results, and you deserve to know which one you are hiring.

“A demand letter with no credible lawsuit behind it is a request, not a threat. That is why so many real cases get sold cheap.”

Here is why the demand-letter-only model leaves money on the table. The first question a company's lawyer asks is not whether your claim is valid. It is whether you will actually sue. Defense lawyers see the same names over and over and know which firms litigate and which fold. A demand letter with no credible lawsuit behind it is a request, not a threat, so the case gets sold cheap. Not because it was weak, but because the lawyer was never going to file and the company priced it accordingly.
 
You generally don't get fair value until a suit is on file and the company has to spend real money to defend it. Once it is filed there is discovery, depositions under oath, and the company paying its own lawyers by the hour for months. The case stops being paper it can ignore and becomes a problem it has to manage.
 
This matters more in Texas. The state and federal courts here have a long-standing reputation as being hard places to bring a discrimination claim, and summary judgment dismissal is granted against employees more readily here than in other parts of the country. Any honest Texas employment lawyer will tell you that straight. A hostile forum plus a lawyer who will not file compound each other, and you pay for both...or rather you don't get paid.
 
So ask the question, then listen. A lawyer who litigates will give you a direct answer about cost, risk, and where your case is strong and weak. A lawyer who only sends letters gets vague. The vagueness is the answer.

-CJMc