Technology’s Effect on Advocacy
next step may be a protective order under CCP § 2025.420 excluding the offending attorney from future depositions in the matter. The authority for such an order may rest on three converging sources: the broad authority for a protective order under section 2025.420(b) the court's inherent authority under CCP § 128(a) (5) to control the conduct of attorneys appearing before it ( See Sheller v. Sup. Ct. (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 1697, 1710) the PwC/Agnone recognition that trial courts may impose sanctions under CCP §§ 2023.010 and 2023.030 for unusual or repeated discovery abuse, including patterns not addressed by the Discovery Act's deposition sanctions provisions. While no published California decision has specifically authorized this lesser-included remedy, the convergence of these three sources supports it as a measured response in cases where disqualification would be too drastic but exclusion from depositions is warranted by a pattern of coaching conduct. For pattern conduct across multiple depositions in the same case, this remedy is powerful because it removes the offending attorney from the discovery process going forward without disqualifying the firm and without unwinding the client's representation entirely. Disqualification of the offending attorney from the case is the next level. Barksdale School Portraits, LLC v. Williams ( D. Mass. 2021) 339 F.R.D. 341, the federal case in which the offending attorney was caught coaching a witness more than fifty times in a single remote deposition, ordered disqualification, permitted plaintiffs to play the recorded coaching exchanges to the jury, and referred the attorney for disciplinary review. The disqualification resulted in the attorney's forfeiture of his fee in the case. While
A Graduated Framework of Remedies
Plaintiffs' counsel who detect coaching at remote depositions now have several available remedies depending on the strength of the record, the seriousness of the conduct, and the stage of the litigation. Asking for too little wastes the opportunity; asking for too much risks an order denying the motion. At the most modest end is monetary sanctions under CCP §§ 2023.010 and 2023.030. Agnone is the model. Where the record shows conduct that frustrates the ability to monitor for coaching, including refusal to appear on camera, to permit a view of the witness's room, or to confirm the absence of devices, monetary sanctions are available without proof of actual coaching. The motion is also appropriate where the record shows a pattern of speaking objections, suggestive cues, and clarification-inducing objections, all of which the federal courts have treated as sanctionable coaching by interruption. ( Security National Bank of Sioux City, Iowa v. Abbott Laboratories (N.D. Iowa 2014) 299 F.R.D. 595, 604- 607, vacated on procedural grounds sub nom. Security National Bank of Sioux City, Iowa v. Jones Day (8th Cir. 2015) 800 F.3d 936.)
Where the conduct is more serious and has compromised the integrity of further proceedings, the
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Consumer Attorneys of California
FORUM September/October 2026
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