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Page-Line 101: What Your Partner Means When They Ask for Citations
When you hand a partner a deposition summary, the first question is almost always the same:
“Where did they say this?”
In litigation, a summary without a reference back to the transcript is just an interpretation. It may be useful for first-pass review, but it’s not defensible. Page-line citations solve this problem by anchoring every point to the exact spot in the record.
Below is the plain-English breakdown of what page-line means, why partners expect it, and how document automation software removes the slowest parts of the workflow.
The Coordinate System of Deposition Transcripts
A deposition transcript is structured like a grid:
- Each page is numbered
- Each line on that page is numbered (typically 1–25)
A page-line citation looks like:
12:5–10
“Page 12, lines 5 through 10.”
It’s a fast way to navigate directly to the testimony being referenced. In litigation prep, this is the difference between believing a summary and verifying it instantly.
Why Partners Insist on Page-Line Citations
1. They need verification in seconds, not minutes
If a summary says the witness “clarified the decision-making timeline,” the partner cannot rely on a paraphrase. They need to see the original language immediately.
Without page-lines:
They’re scanning 150–300 pages hoping to find the quote.
With page-lines:
They flip directly to the right lines or open the source link and confirm.
2. Impeachment depends on precision
During a hearing or trial, contradictions must be surfaced quickly. The attorney needs the exact phrasing and the exact line.
Missing, vague, or wrong citations slow down the prep and can erode confidence in the underlying work.
3. Motion practice requires exact references
When drafting a motion or statement of facts, attorneys must cite the evidentiary record.
If the summary already includes page-line support, associates can draft faster because the evidence is pre-indexed.
Why the Old Workflow Was Painful
For years, teams toggled between a PDF transcript and a Word document, manually typing page-line references after each point.
Problems with the old method:
- Time-consuming: hours lost on administrative steps
- Error-prone: mistyping “45:12” instead of “54:12” breaks trust
- Hard to scale: every deposition summary becomes a manual project
This is the kind of work that burns out junior staff and delays downstream tasks like motion drafts, outlines, and expert prep.
How Modern Software Speeds Up Page-Line Work
Dodon.ai is built around the actual structure of a transcript. The software:
- Reads the page and line layout out of the box
- Anchors each summarized point to the original testimony
- Presents citations as links you can open instantly
- Produces both narrative summaries and page-line formats
This means:
- No manual typing of 12:5-10
- No switching windows
- No searching for passages by keyword guesswork
The summary becomes a navigable index of testimony, with every point mapped back to the deposition itself.
This is still litigation prep, not a courtroom filing, but it removes hours of grunt work from the review cycle.
The Bottom Line
Page-line citations turn a summary into a verifiable tool for litigation prep.
Teams that rely on manual citation work slow themselves down and introduce unnecessary errors.
If your firm is still typing page-lines by hand, you’re spending partner-level time on paralegal-level tasks.
Dodon.ai presents page-line summaries automatically, linking every point back to the transcript so you can verify quickly, prepare stronger outlines, and move through motions and strategy work faster.
Upload a deposition, get a citation-backed summary in minutes.
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