J-Law 31 — The Right to Take Notes at Your Own Deposition

Pro se litigants are permitted to take notes during their own deposition.

The scene deserves to be described plainly. A self-represented person sits for hours of questioning by a trained professional, under oath, with a court reporter recording every word for later use against them. Opposing counsel writes freely throughout. The witness who is also her own advocate — who must track questions, spot objections, and remember every exchange for the litigation ahead — is told to put the pen down.

No rule of evidence requires this; no legitimate interest is served by it. Prohibiting notes serves one function only: keeping the outnumbered party disoriented and dependent on a transcript that arrives weeks later, often at a price. Obstructions of this size seem trivial until they are counted, and the pro se path is paved with them — dozens of petty disadvantages, each individually deniable, collectively decisive. Removing this one costs nothing and states a principle: a person conducting her own defense may use the ordinary tools of thought.

The expected counterargument: a note-taking witness will be distracted, coached by their own notes, or slowed in answering. Every represented party at a deposition sits beside counsel who takes continuous notes for exactly the purposes at issue — tracking testimony, flagging problems, preparing what comes next — and no one has ever suggested the practice corrupts the record. The pro se litigant is her own counsel; denying her the notepad denies her the function, and the distraction concern belongs to her to weigh, since the notes are for her benefit. Depositions run on the questions asked and the answers given, all captured by the reporter regardless of what anyone writes. An objection this thin, defending a restriction this pointless, mostly demonstrates how reflexively the system defends any advantage over the unrepresented, however small.