The protective order changes the job, not just the paperwork
A source code or trade secret deposition is governed by the court's protective order, and every clause in it lands on the agency's setup: what can leave the room, who can be in it, whether a realtime feed may display protected material, and how the transcript gets bound and delivered. Reading the order is the first step of covering the date, not an afterthought — a realtime stream that shows protected material to the wrong person is a big problem the order was written to prevent.
What the agency needs from the order, early
Three weeks before the date is comfortable; three days is a scramble. With the order in hand up front, the reporter can confirm the secure review room, the binding and delivery terms, and whether realtime is limited to counsel table or barred entirely. Working late means all of that gets compressed, and the parts that need other vendors — the room, security, interpreters — never compress well.
What makes the transcript expensive to fix later
Technical matters punish ambiguity. The glossary built from the pleadings, the asserted patents, and the expert reports before the date is the difference between a reporter stopping the line ten times and stopping it once. On a source code day those stops are multiplied by everything else that is restricted. Send the technical material up front even when it feels premature — most of it is public, and the rest is covered until you say otherwise.
The booking shape for a technical day
The caption, the protective order, the expert reports, the patents or source materials in dispute, the expected length, and the room requirements. Multi-day technical depositions are exactly the dates a tight market struggles to cover — book early and name the reporter up front. Our technology litigation practice covers the vocabulary side; request a quote with the order attached and the setup question gets answered in one round.