How do you handle a rough being used in place of transcript for trial?

Expert deposition on Thursday.  Trial scheduled to start on Monday.  Attorneys hooked up with realtime and both ordered a rough.  At the end of the depo they stipulated to use the rough as a "statement" by the witness and told me not to write up the transcript -- all in an effort to avoid the cost of an expedite.  How do we deal with this and/or charge for this situation?

Attys can stipulate that the moon is made of cream cheese... nothing you can do about that.

They got realtime.   Fine.   There's a charge.   They ordered a rough...  In our region they cannot order or receive a rough without a Certified Copy order.  

They've already "heard" the testimony with their ears - no way to preclude that or "charge" for that, per se. 

Can't charge for an expedite, but you would charge your no-write up fee.  You're only coming out a little bit short, and compensating for that shortage, you don't have to finalize the transcript.

When sending out that rough, I'd take off all page and line numbers so they cannot cite pg and line.  I'd include ROUGH DRAFT/UNEDITED; NOT TO BE CITED IN ANY COURT PROCEEDING language in the beginning of the draft.   I'd also include an header and footer - ROUGH DRAFT to appear on each page. 

watermarks - it has saved me several times.  I don't certify a draft.  If they want the work, they should pay you for your time.  Most attorneys don't give out free advice, no matter how 'rough' it is.  :>)

I would charge your normal rates since they are using it for trial, whether it's a rough or not.

My off-the-cuff thought, which I could rethink, veto, and rewrite later, is that this is B.S.--it's totally incompetent of an attorney to try to introduce an uncertified "rough" transcript into a court record.  They can stand before the judge and make representations all day long about what they thought the witness said, but your rough transcript would not serve as proof until you complete it and certify it. I guess they could use your rough the same way they could use their handwritten notes they took down on their yellow pads.  For sure you would need to include some statement at the beginning that says the transcript is in rough form and may include mistranslates, untranslates, dropped words--shoot, maybe even some "creative writing" that everyone seems to surprise themselves with when checking audio later--hahaha!  I like the idea of taking off line numbers, and for sure include a header at the top of every page that identifies it as a rough draft.  And don't have your name on it, either--and no identification of the case name or number.  Shoot, while you're at it, go in and global every "a" to change to an "x" or something.  Oh, this is getting good...

The point is, make it clear that this is an unedited transcript that contains errors, and do not certify it and don't have your name appear on it. 

Even though we all would love to "punish" the attorneys for their thoughtlessness in doing such things that border on unethical, the reporter still has a job to do.  I, for one, would give them a VERY clean rough draft so they can use it, but not spend any more time on it than I do any other rough draft, and then I would charge them for a full transcript.  It is the policy of almost every firm I work with that the attorney cannot receive a rough without receiving a fully edited, final, certified transcript later.  Even if it is after trial because they didn't want to pay expedite.   On a rough, I clean up my untrans, any conflicts that might be there, clean up notes to myself, check the spots I flagged, put in a disclaimer title page, spell check, and then it's done.   And then I'd send the bill out Monday morning.

I agree with VickyMac,

this is getting rediculous what the attys think they can 'ask' for and get away with.  it all started with free ASCII's, now this???  And you know good and well that they will try to use it in court.  the rule in court is it must be a certified transcript.  I agree with the comment that no way would a judge accept handwritten notes on a yellow pad as evidence.  how on earth do you think a judge will feel about a "rough draft" transcript??

as for stipulating?? I agree with the earlier statement:  Attys can stipulate to anything.  But your job, as a court reporter, is to produce a certified copy of the proceedings of that deposition.  So I would go ahead and give a rough, but charge them for a certified transcript and deliver it soon.

it is also my understanding that ordering a rough draft includes the order of a certified.  or you could give them your steno notes and let them figure it out....  (sorry, i'm getting snippy here, just kidding.)

that would be the effect of their sharing their yellow pad notes with each other.  won't make a lot of sense to the other side, especially if they learned to write Gregg shorthand and there's a lot of squiggles...

good luck,