§ 2025.510.Transcription of testimony recorded by stenographic means;

Once the reporter finishes taking down a deposition, someone has to turn shorthand into a readable transcript, and this section handles who pays and how the record gets preserved. Unless the parties agree otherwise, the stenographically recorded testimony has to be transcribed, with the noticing party covering the cost unless the court, on a good-cause motion, shifts or splits that expense.

Any other party or the deponent can get a copy of the transcript at that person's own expense, and if the reporter is about to make a full or partial transcript available to one requesting party before anyone else can get it, the reporter has to notify every other attending party of the request and make the same copy available to them at the same time on request. Stenographic notes themselves have to survive for years afterward: at least eight years if no transcript was ever produced, or at least one year from when a transcript was produced, whether kept on paper or in electronic form.

Parties who record by audio or video also owe access to everyone else: on request, even from a party who skipped the deposition, the recording party has to let others listen to or view the recording and provide a copy at the reasonable cost of making it. If both a stenographic and an audio or video record exist, the stenographic transcript is the official record for trial and appeal. Finally, the section requires the requesting attorney or self-represented party to pay the deposition officer promptly for the transcript and any other requested product or service, addresses how that obligation interacts with private payment agreements and a nonparty officer's ability to enforce a judgment for unpaid fees, and defines deposition product or service broadly to cover shorthand reporting and anything derived from it.