A pre-recorded streaming VIDEO replay of the March 2023 webcast, Deposing a Corporation’s Designated Witness Under Federal Rule 30(b)(6) or Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6)—“The Designated Hitter”.
Topics Covered
- Learn the black letter rules for designated-witness depositions
- Explore how to best select, prepare, and question the corporate designee
- Get tips and best practices from the experts for both the plaintiffs and defendants
You’ve sued a corporation. It’s time for depositions. You know what you want to ask, but you don’t know who in the corporation knows the answers. Learn how to prepare a deposition notice under Federal Rule 30(b)(6) or Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6) and how the corporation should respond.
Formerly, the task of obtaining information by deposition from a corporation (or other organization) required that the deposing party name an officer or managing agent as the witness. This created the two-fold problem: that the named person might not have the information you need or that whoever did possess the information might not be an officer or managing agent. Federal Rule 30(b)(6) and Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6) have remedied this problem by allowing a deposing party to instead describe what it wants to know, not who knows it, leaving it to the corporation to select its witnesses and to adequately prepare them to testify. The deposition notice must describe matters to be covered “with reasonable particularity,” but neither rule limits the number of topics that may be covered in a single notice.
This program examines the tactics and pitfalls in the use of Federal Rule 30(b)(6) and Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6) from the perspectives of counsel for both plaintiff and defendant, to include:
- The “reasonable particularity” requirement
- Selecting persons to testify
- Use of outside persons to testify
- Preparing the witnesses
- Binding effect of testimony
- Claiming lack of corporate knowledge of the subject
- Sanctions for noncompliance