Preparing Exhibits and Demonstratives for Trial: A Practical Guide

Document type: Guide Practice area: Litigation — Trial Practice Jurisdiction: United States Last reviewed: 5 September 2026

The principle

Exhibits are not selected from the document production. They are derived from the case theory, backwards.

Start with the verdict form. For each question the jury will answer, list the facts that must be proved. For each fact, identify the evidence that proves it. Only then go to the production and find the documents.

Teams that work the other way — reviewing the production for good documents and building a list — end with four hundred exhibits, no clear theory of what each proves, and a trial in which half of them are never shown.

Twelve weeks out: build the database

Every exhibit gets a row, and the row is the working document for the whole trial team.

The two columns that do the work are "what it proves" and "authentication route." An exhibit whose first column is blank should come off the list. An exhibit whose second column is blank is a foundation problem nobody has solved yet.

Sort by sponsoring witness. That view becomes the witness folders. Sort by authentication route, and the certification and stipulation work sets itself.

Ten weeks out: certifications

Rules 902(11) through (14) are the highest-leverage tools in exhibit practice and are routinely ignored.

902(11) — certified domestic business records. Obtain a written declaration from the custodian tracking the language of Rule 803(6): made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, someone with knowledge; kept in the course of a regularly conducted activity; and making the record was a regular practice of that activity.

902(12) — the same for foreign records.

902(13) — certified records generated by an electronic process or system, certified by a qualified person, showing the system produces an accurate result.

902(14) — certified data copied from an electronic device or file, authenticated by hash value or other reliable digital identification.

How to run it:

1. Identify every exhibit that could be certified — third-party records, your own client's records where the custodian would otherwise testify, and system output.
2. Request certifications from the custodians, supplying a draft that tracks the rule.
3. Serve them with the exhibits and a written notice of intent, sixty days or more before trial. The rules require reasonable written notice and an opportunity to inspect; earlier is better and a late certification invites an objection about notice that has nothing to do with the merits.
4. Track objections and cure defects promptly — most objections concern whether the declarant is a qualified custodian, and a supplemental certification fixes it.

A well-run certification programme in a document-heavy case eliminates days of foundation testimony and several witnesses.

Eight weeks out: the stipulation session

Calendar an actual working session with opposing counsel, in person or by video, with the exhibit lists on screen.

Work through the lists item by item. For each exhibit, ask: authenticity stipulated? admissibility stipulated? objection, and on what ground?

In most document-heavy commercial cases, eighty to ninety-five percent of exhibits can be stipulated as to authenticity, and a large proportion as to admissibility. Every one is a witness not called, an objection not made in front of the jury, and trial time recovered.

Why counsel resist, and why the resistance is usually wrong:

• "Stipulating to authenticity concedes something." It does not. It concedes that the document is what it appears to be. Every substantive objection survives.
• "They might fail to lay a foundation." Competent counsel will not, and judges notice a party manufacturing foundation fights over its own production.
• "No time." This is the real reason, and it is why the session goes in the calendar eight weeks out rather than being attempted the weekend before.

Document the result in a written stipulation for the pretrial order, listing exhibits by number in three categories: authenticity and admissibility stipulated; authenticity stipulated, admissibility reserved; and contested.

Six weeks out: redactions

Redaction errors cause mistrials, and the failure mode is mechanical rather than legal.

The workflow:

1. Identify what must be redacted: privileged material, protected personal information, material excluded in limine, irrelevant and prejudicial content, and material subject to a protective order.
2. Apply redactions to a flattened file. Black boxes drawn over text in a layered PDF can be removed. Redact, flatten, and then open the redacted file and search for the redacted text to confirm it is gone.
3. Maintain a redaction log: exhibit, location, basis.
4. Provide the redacted version to opposing counsel and get agreement, or raise the dispute in limine.
5. Ensure the version in the trial database, the version displayed, the version admitted, and the version going to the jury room are the same file. Version control failures here are how unredacted documents reach juries.

Assign one person to own redactions end to end. Distributed responsibility is how the wrong version gets loaded.

Six weeks out: motions in limine

File the ones worth filing. A motion in limine that seeks a ruling the court will not give in advance wastes credibility.

Worth filing:

• Exclusion of a category of evidence on a discrete legal ground.
• Exclusion of an expert opinion, or a portion of one.
• A ruling on a demonstrative or animation whose admissibility will otherwise be litigated in front of the jury.
• Exclusion of evidence whose mere mention would be prejudicial, so that counsel is instructed not to refer to it in opening.
• A ruling on the scope of a Rule 1006 summary.

Not worth filing:

• Motions that amount to "exclude all irrelevant evidence."
• Objections to individual documents that can be made when offered.
• Motions the court will defer to trial anyway, unless the deferral itself is useful.

Ask for a definitive ruling. A provisional ruling generally does not preserve the objection, and counsel must object again at trial. Ask the court to state whether the ruling is definitive, and whether a standing objection is preserved.

Four weeks out: foundation scripts

Write them. One page per exhibit category, executable by whoever is examining the witness.

Business record — script Q. I'm handing you what's been marked as Exhibit ___. Do you recognize it? Q. What is it? Q. Is this a record that [Company] keeps? Q. Who creates records like this? Q. Do they have knowledge of the information in them? Q. When is the record created relative to the events it records? Q. Is creating this type of record a regular practice at [Company]? Q. Is it kept in the ordinary course of [Company]'s business? Offer: "Your Honour, [party] offers Exhibit ___."

Photograph — script Q. Do you recognize what's shown in Exhibit ___? Q. Were you familiar with [the scene] on [date]? Q. Does Exhibit ___ fairly and accurately depict [the scene] as it appeared on that date? Offer.

Video, silent witness — script Q. Does [Company] operate video recording equipment at [location]? Q. Describe the system. / How are recordings stored? Q. Was the system functioning properly on [date]? Q. How was this recording retrieved? / Has it been altered in any way? Offer.

Scripts are not a substitute for knowing the rules; they are a way of ensuring that a tired lawyer on day four does not omit the "regular practice" element.

Three weeks out: demonstratives

Design rules that survive objection:

• Neutral labels. "Amount Invoiced," not "Amount Wrongfully Withheld."
• No conclusions in headings.
• No colour coding that implies fault.
• Every number traceable to an admitted exhibit or to testimony, with the citation available.
• Legible from the jury box — test it in the actual room.
• Simple. One idea per demonstrative.

Decide the status of each one:

• Rule 1006 summary — substantive evidence, goes to the jury room. Requires: underlying material admissible, produced to the other side at a reasonable time, and a witness to testify how it was prepared and that it accurately reflects the records. Keep it arithmetic.
• Demonstrative — illustrates testimony, not admitted, not in the jury room. May be more interpretive, but not argumentative.

Where you want both, build both versions, as in the worked example below.

Disclose early. Most pretrial orders require exchange of demonstratives, often several days before use. Comply, and object to the other side's late ones.

Animations and simulations. Disclose the inputs and assumptions. Expect a motion. Be honest about which it is — a simulation dressed as an animation invites a Rule 702 fight you will lose.

Two weeks out: technology and logistics

Visit the courtroom. Confirm: display capability; whether the jury has individual monitors or a shared screen; whether counsel controls the display or the clerk does; connection types; whether an operator may sit at counsel table; and whether the court permits its own equipment to be used.

Test with the actual files. A demonstrative that renders correctly on a laptop and not on the courtroom system is a wasted week.

Have a fallback. Paper enlargements of the five most important exhibits, and a printed set for the witness, the judge, and opposing counsel. Technology fails in courtrooms with unusual reliability.

Assign an operator. Someone whose only job is display. Counsel operating a laptop while examining a witness is examining badly.

Prepare the physical sets: court's set, witness set, opposing counsel's set, and the jury room set — the last built only from exhibits actually admitted, verified item by item.

During trial: the exhibit log

Maintain it daily. One row per exhibit: offered (date), admitted / excluded / conditional, limiting instruction given, condition met, published to the jury.

At the end of each trial day, a junior lawyer reconciles the log against the transcript. Fifteen minutes. It catches:

• Exhibits admitted subject to connection where the connection was never made — move to strike, or supply the connection.
• Exhibits offered but never ruled on.
• Exhibits admitted but never shown to the jury.
• Limiting instructions given that must be repeated in the charge and must accompany exhibits to the jury room.
• Discrepancies between the exhibit number used in court and the one in the database.

Before deliberations, the log produces the jury room set, and the verification against it is the last defence against an unredacted or unadmitted document reaching the jury.

Deposition designations

In cases with unavailable or party witnesses, designations are an exhibit workstream of their own.

• Designate early, per the pretrial order, by page and line.
• Counter-designate under the rule of completeness — Rule 106, as amended, makes the completing portion admissible over a hearsay objection.
• Object by line, with grounds, and get rulings before trial.
• Prepare the edited video to match the rulings exactly, and have someone check it against the ruling document. An unedited passage that was excluded is a mistrial risk.
• Provide a transcript for the jury to follow, understanding that the video is the evidence.
• Track the running time. Designations always run longer than counsel expects, and courts impose limits.

Working with the witnesses

An exhibit is only as good as the witness who sponsors it, and witness preparation for exhibits is a distinct exercise from preparation on the merits.

Build the witness folder from the database, sorted by sponsoring witness: every exhibit that witness will authenticate, in the order they will be offered, with the foundation script on the facing page.

Walk the witness through the physical process. Where the exhibit will be handed to them, that they should look at it before answering, that they should wait for the ruling before discussing contents, and that they should answer the foundation questions crisply — this is the part of the testimony where the jury is deciding whether the witness is careful.

Prepare them for the foundation questions specifically, and for the follow-up. A custodian who says "yes, we keep these in the ordinary course" and then, on cross, cannot describe the system has damaged the exhibit and themselves.

Prepare them to say "I don't know." A witness who guesses about how a document was created hands the opponent a foundation attack.

Do not over-prepare on the script. A witness who recites foundation answers verbatim sounds coached, which is exactly the impression to avoid on the questions where credibility is being established.

For adverse and hostile witnesses, plan the exhibit sequence carefully. Documents from the opposing party's own production are largely self-proving in practice — a party rarely disputes the authenticity of what it produced — and the examination should move to the content quickly rather than lingering on foundation the witness will resist.

For expert witnesses, distinguish the exhibits they rely on from the exhibits they created. Materials relied on may be disclosed without being admitted; charts they created are demonstratives or Rule 1006 summaries and should be labelled as such in the pretrial exchange.

Handling the other side's exhibits

Preparation is not only about your own list.

Review their list against the same database structure. For each of their exhibits, record: what it proves, whether authenticity is disputable, whether a hearsay objection exists, whether Rule 403 applies, whether it should be met with a completeness demand, and whether a limiting instruction should be requested.

Object within fourteen days of the Rule 26(a)(3) disclosures. Grounds other than relevance under Rules 402 and 403 are waived if not raised. This deadline is missed with startling frequency and it forfeits real objections.

Identify the completeness opportunities. For every excerpt, deposition designation, or partial document on their list, find the surrounding material that changes its meaning and prepare the Rule 106 demand with the specific pages identified.

Plan the cross-examination exhibits separately. Documents used only on cross need not be on the exhibit list in many jurisdictions if used for impeachment, but the rules vary and the pretrial order controls. Check, because a good impeachment document excluded on a listing technicality is a painful loss.

Prepare the limiting instructions you will request, in writing, one sentence each, ready to hand up.

Decide what not to fight. Objecting to everything trains the court to overrule you. Pick the exhibits that matter and fight those.

Worked example one: the document-heavy commercial trial

Ravi Sundaram tries a supply agreement dispute with 1.2 million documents produced and a three-week trial.

Twelve weeks out. The team builds the exhibit database from the verdict form backwards. The first pass produces 620 candidate exhibits. Applying the "what does this prove that another exhibit does not" test cuts it to 310.

Ten weeks out. Certification programme: 902(11) certifications from four third parties and from the client's own custodian, covering 890 documents; a 902(13) certification for ERP output. Served at day 62 with written notice. Two objections, both cured with supplemental certifications by day 45.

Eight weeks out. Stipulation session, four hours by video. Result: 271 exhibits stipulated as to authenticity and admissibility; 24 authenticity stipulated, admissibility reserved; 15 contested.

Six weeks out. Redactions on 41 exhibits, flattened, text-searched, logged, exchanged. Three motions in limine filed: one on a competitor's expert opinion, one on evidence of a prior unrelated dispute, one seeking a ruling on the defendant's proposed animation.

Four weeks out. Foundation scripts for the 15 contested exhibits and for each category. Witness folders assembled by sponsoring witness.

Three weeks out. Six demonstratives, two of them built in both Rule 1006 and demonstrative versions. Exchanged per the order.

Two weeks out. Courtroom visit; files tested on the court system; operator assigned; paper fallbacks for eleven key exhibits.

At trial. Total foundation testimony across three weeks: about ninety minutes. The 15 contested exhibits are litigated individually; 11 are admitted. The exhibit log catches two conditionally admitted exhibits on day 7 whose connection had not been made; one is cured, one is struck on Ravi's own motion — which costs nothing and buys credibility.

The jury room set is verified against the log by two people independently.

Worked example two: the compressed schedule

Fiona Achterberg gets a trial date six weeks out after a continuance is denied. There is no time for the full programme.

What she prioritizes, in order:

1. The stipulation session, immediately. Even a rushed session eliminates the bulk of the foundation problem. She proposes it the day the date is set.
2. Certifications for the third-party records only — the ones that would otherwise require out-of-town witnesses. Served at day 30 with notice; she accepts the risk of a notice objection because the alternative is three subpoenas.
3. Cutting the exhibit list hard. From 240 to 95. In a compressed trial, a long list is unusable anyway.
4. Foundation scripts for the categories, not for individual exhibits.
5. Two demonstratives, both simple, both exchanged on time.
6. Redactions, owned by one person, with the search-the-file verification step preserved — this step is never skipped regardless of schedule.
7. The courtroom visit and technology test, which takes two hours and prevents the failure that would cost a day.

What she skips: elaborate demonstratives; motions in limine that the court would defer anyway; and the individually tailored foundation scripts.

The result is a trial that runs a day longer than it would have with full preparation and produces the same evidentiary record. The lesson is that the schedule has a priority order, and the items at the top — stipulations, certifications, cutting the list, redaction verification — deliver nearly all of the benefit.

Bench trials and arbitrations

The same discipline applies with different emphasis where there is no jury.

Bench trials. Judges routinely admit evidence subject to weight rather than excluding it, and Rule 403 arguments carry less force — a judge is presumed capable of disregarding prejudicial material. That changes the calculus:

• Spend less on in limine practice and more on organization. A judge who can find the document you are discussing is a judge who is following you.
• Provide a bench binder, tabbed and indexed, with the key exhibits. Many judges prefer paper for documents they will actually study.
• Consider proposed findings of fact with citations to exhibit numbers, submitted at the close of evidence. This is where a bench trial is won, and an exhibit cited by number in a proposed finding is an exhibit the judge will look at.
• Foundation still matters for the record on appeal, even where the judge is inclined to admit everything.

Arbitration. The rules of evidence generally do not apply, and tribunals admit almost everything subject to weight. What matters instead:

• Document production is narrower, so exhibits are fewer and each carries more weight.
• The hearing bundle is the organizing artifact. Agree it with the other side, paginate it consecutively, and index it. A well-built joint bundle is worth more in arbitration than any evidentiary objection.
• Witness statements replace direct examination, and exhibits are usually attached to or referenced in them. The exhibit work therefore happens at the witness statement stage, not at the hearing.
• Authenticity is rarely contested, and a party that contests it without reason irritates the tribunal.
• Demonstratives are freely used and are often more elaborate than a court would permit, because the audience is expert.

The common thread: in every forum, the work is in the organization, and the organization is what makes the substance visible.

Common failures

No sponsoring witness identified. An exhibit on the list that nobody was assigned to authenticate, discovered on the morning it is needed.

Certifications served too late. The rules require reasonable written notice; a certification served eight days before trial invites an objection that has nothing to do with reliability.

Redaction applied but not flattened. Removable black boxes in a produced or displayed file.

Version mismatch. The file displayed differs from the file admitted differs from the file in the jury room.

Conditional admission never completed. "Subject to connection," and the connection is never made and nobody notices.

Argumentative summaries. A chart offered under Rule 1006 with headings that state the proponent's conclusion, excluded entirely rather than admitted in a neutral form.

Objections waived under Rule 26(a)(3). Fourteen days, and grounds other than relevance are gone.

No offer of proof. An exhibit excluded, no proffer made, and no appellate issue.

Demonstratives not preserved. An animation used and objected to, with no copy in the record, and an appellate court that cannot review what it cannot see.

A list too long to use. Four hundred exhibits, half never shown, and a jury with no sense of which four mattered.

The five things that matter most

If time is short, do these and let the rest go:

1. Derive the exhibit list from the verdict form, and cut everything that does not prove a required fact.
2. Run the stipulation session, however rushed.
3. Serve Rule 902 certifications early enough to cure objections.
4. Own the redactions, with the flatten-and-search verification, from one person.
5. Verify the jury room set against the exhibit log, item by item, by two people.

Everything else in this guide improves a trial. Those five prevent the failures that lose one.

Staffing and roles

Exhibit work fails when responsibility is diffuse. Assign it explicitly.

The exhibit owner. One lawyer, usually mid-level, who owns the database, the certifications, the stipulation process, the redactions, and the daily log. This person's name is on the workstream and they attend every trial team meeting. On a large trial this is close to a full-time role for two months.

The redaction owner. May be the same person on a small case; must be a distinct assignment on a large one. Owns the flatten-and-search verification and the version control from database to display to jury room.

The technology operator. Runs the display, maintains the trial presentation database, and prepares the daily set of exhibits the team expects to use. Should attend the courtroom test and should have a written fallback plan.

The log keeper. Reconciles the exhibit log against the transcript each evening. Usually the most junior lawyer on the team, and it is genuinely valuable work — the exhibit log catches errors that senior lawyers, absorbed in the examination, do not see.

The witness folder owner. Assembles and maintains folders by sponsoring witness, updated as rulings come in.

Who decides. Lead counsel decides what goes on the list and what comes off. That decision should not be delegated, because it is the case theory expressed as documents.

A note on the client. Clients are frequently the best source of context about their own documents — what a code means, why a report exists, who received it. A session with a knowledgeable client representative going through the candidate exhibits will improve the descriptions, identify documents the team misread, and often surface a document nobody had found. Schedule it at the ten-week mark.

Building the demonstrative that works

A few specifics, because most demonstratives are worse than the testimony they accompany.

The timeline. The most useful demonstrative in commercial litigation and the easiest to overbuild. Rules: one horizontal axis, dates that a juror can read, no more than twelve to fifteen events, each event traceable to an admitted exhibit, and neutral labels. Build it to grow — reveal events as the testimony reaches them, rather than displaying the finished thing at the outset. A timeline that appears fully formed invites the jury to read ahead instead of listening.

The organizational chart. Useful for showing who reported to whom and who was in the room. Keep it to the people who actually appear in the case. A chart with sixty boxes is decoration.

The document callout. The single most effective visual in most trials: the exhibit on screen, the relevant sentence enlarged beside it, with the context still visible. It is honest — the jury sees the whole page — and it directs attention without argument.

The comparison. Two versions of a document, two contract clauses, the promise and the performance. Side by side, aligned, with the difference highlighted but unlabelled. Let the witness say what the difference means.

The numbers. Where the case turns on figures, a clean table beats a chart, and a chart beats a paragraph. If a chart is used: label the axes, start the vertical axis at zero unless there is a stated reason not to, and put the source under it. A truncated axis is the fastest way to lose credibility with a numerate juror and with the judge.

What to avoid. Stock imagery. Clip art. More than two colours carrying meaning. Text below eighteen points. Anything that requires an explanation of the graphic before the substance can be discussed. And any element whose purpose is to make the jury feel something rather than to help them understand something — that is what closing argument is for, and a demonstrative that argues is a demonstrative that gets excluded.

Test them on someone outside the case. A colleague who has not read the file should be able to say what the demonstrative shows within ten seconds. If they cannot, it is not finished.

The week before trial

A short list of things that should happen in the final week, in roughly this order.

Monday. Final exhibit list locked and circulated. Pre-marking completed. Witness folders printed and assembled. Any outstanding certification objections resolved or raised with the court.

Tuesday. Redaction verification: every redacted exhibit opened, searched for the redacted text, and signed off by the redaction owner and one other person. Version reconciliation across the database, the presentation system, and the paper sets.

Wednesday. Courtroom technology test with the actual files on the actual system. Paper fallbacks printed for the key exhibits. Operator confirmed and present.

Thursday. Foundation script run-through with the trial team — the examining lawyer for each witness reads the script aloud once. This takes an hour and finds the omitted element every time.

Friday. Motions in limine rulings reviewed and translated into a one-page "do not mention" list for the whole team, including the client. Deposition designation edits verified against the rulings, line by line, by someone who did not do the editing.

Over the weekend. Cut ten more exhibits. There are always ten that nobody can explain the purpose of, and removing them makes the case clearer.

And one habit worth keeping. Print a single page listing, for each verdict form question, the three exhibits that prove it. Tape it inside the trial notebook. When the trial gets long and the days blur, that page is the answer to the only question that matters: are we putting in front of this jury the things they will need to decide for us.

When something goes wrong

It will. A short protocol for the three most common trial-day exhibit problems.

The foundation fails. The witness cannot supply an element and the objection is sustained. Do not argue in front of the jury. Say "we'll return to that," move on, and address it at the next break: either recall the witness after supplying the missing element through another, offer the exhibit through a different witness, or ask the court to admit it subject to connection. Make an offer of proof if the exclusion holds. And do not repeat the attempt in front of the jury without a plan — a second failure on the same exhibit costs credibility with both the jury and the court.

The wrong version is displayed. Stop immediately, say so on the record, ask that the jury be instructed to disregard, and — if the material was excluded or unredacted — raise with the court whether any further remedy is needed. Concealment converts a mistake into misconduct. Courts are generally forgiving of an error promptly disclosed and unforgiving of one discovered later.

The technology fails. Switch to paper without comment. This is why the fallback set exists. The jury notices calm competence and does not notice which medium the document arrived on.

The unanticipated objection succeeds. Ask for a sidebar rather than litigating in front of the jury. If the ruling stands, make the offer of proof at the next break, on the record, with the exhibit marked. An adverse ruling properly preserved is a manageable problem; an adverse ruling argued at length in front of the jury is two problems.

Budgeting the work

For planning, the exhibit workstream on a three-week commercial trial with a few hundred exhibits:

• Database construction and first-pass selection: 60–100 hours, mid-level.
• Cutting the list against the verdict form: 8–12 hours, senior, and the highest-value hours in the whole exercise.
• Certification programme: 20–40 hours, including chasing custodians, which always takes longer than the drafting.
• Stipulation session and follow-up: 15–25 hours.
• Redactions and verification: 20–60 hours depending on volume, plus the verification pass.
• Motions in limine: 40–80 hours for three or four substantive motions.
• Foundation scripts: 10–15 hours.
• Demonstratives: highly variable — 20 hours for six simple ones, hundreds if an animation is involved.
• Deposition designations and edits: 30–60 hours, and reliably underestimated.
• Courtroom setup and testing: 10 hours.
• Daily log during trial: 1 hour per trial day.

The total is substantial, and clients ask why. The answer is short: the certification programme alone typically saves more trial days than it costs in preparation hours, at a fraction of the hourly cost of trial time — and the alternative to preparation is not less work but the same work performed badly under time pressure in front of a jury.

After the verdict

Two tasks that are easy to skip and worth ten minutes each.

Preserve the exhibit record. Confirm that every exhibit — admitted, excluded, and marked for identification only — is filed with the court or preserved as the local rules require, including demonstratives that were objected to and the electronic files for any animation. Post-trial motions and appeals turn on this record, and it is far easier to secure in the week after the verdict than in the month after a notice of appeal.

Debrief the workstream. Fifteen minutes with the trial team: which exhibits actually mattered; which were never used; where the foundation work was wasted and where it was insufficient; what the technology did; what the log caught. Write half a page.

The half page is the reason the next trial goes better. Nearly every failure described in this guide is one that some team has already made and forgotten, and the difference between a firm that gets steadily better at trying cases and one that does not is whether anybody wrote down what happened.

Exhibits in a remote or hybrid proceeding

Remote hearings and hybrid trials are now routine for some proceedings, and the exhibit mechanics change in ways worth planning for.

Pre-delivery. Every participant — the witness, the judge, opposing counsel, the reporter — needs the exhibit set in advance, in an agreed format, with an agreed numbering that matches what will be displayed. Sending a witness a 400-page PDF the morning of their testimony guarantees confusion.

Witness control. A remote witness with the whole exhibit set open on a second screen can read ahead, consult documents not yet offered, and be prompted off camera. Courts handle this variously: sealed exhibit packets opened on instruction, screen-sharing only from counsel's side, a requirement that the witness's full workspace be visible, or an oath about who else is present. Raise the protocol before the deposition or hearing, not during.

Display. Confirm who shares the screen, that the resolution is adequate for the witness's device, and that the shared view shows what counsel intends — a common failure is sharing a window that displays counsel's annotations.

Handling objections. Build in a pause after each exhibit is displayed so that objections can be made before the witness reads it aloud. Latency defeats the ordinary rhythm of objection.

The record. Confirm how displayed exhibits are recorded and how the reporter identifies them. Where a witness is directed to a passage on screen, describe it aloud by page and line so the transcript is intelligible without the video.

The underlying discipline is the same as in a courtroom: know what each exhibit proves, know how it gets in, and make sure the version everyone is looking at is the version that was admitted.

A closing thought

There is a version of trial preparation that consists of accumulating: more documents, more demonstratives, more witnesses, more time. It feels like diligence and it produces a trial in which nothing stands out.

The better version is subtractive. It starts from the questions the jury will answer and asks, for each one, what the shortest honest path to a yes looks like. Usually that path runs through three or four documents, one or two witnesses, and a single visual that makes the relationship between them obvious. Everything else on the list is there because someone was afraid to leave it out.

The certifications, the stipulations, the scripts, the logs — all of the machinery in this guide exists to make room for that. Do the mechanical work early and well, and the trial becomes what it should be: a small number of things, shown clearly, to people who are trying to get it right.

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