A deposition in this part of the country is usually "noticed" or subpoenaed by the attorney who wants to question either the plaintiff or the defendant in a civil lawsuit.  In civil lawsuits a deposition is part of the discovery process before the case goes to trial.  The rules of civil procedure are pretty liberal as to what can and can't be asked in a deposition.  The attorney representing the witness who is being questioned can put an objection on the record to the question, and the Court can decide later if the answer is to be included in the trial.   For the most part, the witness has to answer whether he wants to or not.  There are cases, though, where you will be asked to certify a question and it will be sent to the judge to determine if that is something that can be asked or not.  In 12 years, though, I have only been asked to do that once.

If you are working for a large court reporting agency, you should be given an assignment which includes a copy of the caption or the style of the case.  This is the page where it lists the plaintiff(s) and defendant(s), the court case number, county and all pertinent information you willl need to set up a transcript.  It should also have the names and addresses of all attorneys in the case the parties they are representing.  It's important to have this information prior to arriving at the deposition as it's not always easy to get this once you arrive.  The attorneys are ready to begin questioning, usually as soon as they arrive, or they are discussing things among themselves before the deposition starts and it's just not convenient to ask them to fumble through their files and retrieve the information you need.

Where you sit is very important.  Since you are the one making the official record, it's important that you are as close to the witness as possible.  If you are in a conference room, then I would advise that you sit at the head of the table with the witness to your immediate left or right with the questioning attorney directly across from the witness.  At times an uniformed attorney will suggest that you sit at the end of the table, but you really are one of the most important people in this proceeding and you need to politely remind him that you are the one making the record and have to be able to hear everything that is said.  You are making a verbatim record and everything that is said goes into the record.  You arrive at this proceeding completely cold to the issue at hand, you do not know the people involved, you have no idea if the witness is going to mumble, "swallow" words, has an accent, or speaks too softly to hear.  You have no idea of the name spellings, terminology pertinent to the case or background of what's going on.  The other people in the room have been immersed in the case for months and even years and will just fly through information.  You, on the other hand, have got to listen intently to names, odd spellings, unfamiliar terminology and be prepared on break to solicit this information the best you can.

Once the proceeding starts, you will make a note of the exact time, and in our part of the country you will either swear or affirm the witness.  We still use a Bible here, and you will ask the witness to place his left hand on the Bible and raise his right hand.  The oath goes like this: "Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"  The witness usually answer with, "I do."  Occasionally you will get "I'll try."  If you have a witness who objects to swearing on the Bible, then you may affirm him:  "Do you affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

Once the deposition starts, 99.9 percent of the time the first question is:  "State your name for the record, please."  (You actually don't put a question mark after this as it is considered a polite command.  You will learn all of this in court reporting school)  The attorney then goes through a series of questions regarding the background of the witness, educational background, employment history, etc.  If the witness has been prepped by his attorney, he will give short, succinct answers to the question and not volunteer any additional information.  You will sometimes have a witness who wants to talk on and on, and I can see his attorney squirming in his seat and repeating over and over, "Just answer the question, please." 

From our perspective as a court reporter, I try to engage the witness in a little casual conversation before the proceeding starts.  By doing this, I can get a feel for their voice tone and how softly or loudly they speak.  It can be intimidating for a witness sometimes and I try to make a little light banter before we begin.  The witness is often curious as to the equipment you have, and you can usually engage in a conversation about that.  For very nervous witnesses, I usually say something like, "Just think of me as the potted plant," or "This will be somewhere between a hair cut and a root canal."

You're going to have all kinds of speaking voices, and you will have to really train your ear to a lot of different accents, dialects and speaking voices..  You will have the boisterous witness before the deposition and on break, but who then puts his hand up over his mouth and barely speaks an answer on the record.    It's never a good idea to interrupt the proceeding, but you occasionally will have to ask a witness to speak up.  They will do this for one or two questions and then go back to their former manner of speech.  It can be very frustrating at times.  Another common frustration is when the attorneys and the witnesses are all speaking over each other.  Even though you will be trained in four-voice testimony in court reporting school, this will be something that you're going to encounter, and by all means, this is when you can interrupt.  It's virtually impossible to make a record with three or four people talking at one time.  On the other hand, you will have very good attorneys who will give instructions in the beginning about this and who can make your job a lot easier.