Legal Question in Administrative Law in California

Re: Depostion

1. No, but you may get a copy of the transcript and you can bring an attorney.

2. Yes you can ask for different date. You may want to put the reason in writing in a fax.

3. There is some things that are and are not discoverable that can be objected to where appropriate.

4. I do not know of specific books but you can look in a law library.

Re: Depostion

You can tape record your deposition.

In California Superior Court cases, this is permitted by Code of Civil Procedure section 2025.330(c), but you must give three days' prior written notice to all parties as set forth in the code section.

In Federal Court cases it is permitted by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(3) with appropriate prior notice to all other parties.

HGowever, you should probably rely upon the official transcript made by the court reporter, and focus your attention on your thoughts, not your tape recorder, during the deposition.

You can ask the opposing attorney to change the deposition date, and advising him of the reason - having more complete documents - should be persuasive; but keep in mind that if trial is approaching, the attorney may be under procedural time pressure to take your deposition before a certain date, and he is not required to grant you any favors.

Are the 30 questions written interrogatories or merely a tip-off as to what will be asked at your deposition? If the former, you need to make a timely written response. In either case, there are limited grounds for refusing to provide answers, documents, etc. in discovery. Generally, discovery must be "reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence," and this requires not that the things sought or inquired about be admissible themselves, but only that they (the answers or the documents) may lead to admissible evidence. So, a question or demand is objectionable only if the response is necessarily protected because it invades privacy or seeks material that is otherwise inadmissible (irrelevant, private, contrary to policy, etc.). Knowing the rules here is why lawyers go to school for three years! The county law library will have lots of books on discovery; ask the law librarian for a basic practice manual like CEB Civil Discovery Practice, or James' "Guerrilla Discovery."