The use of videotaped depositions is prevalent in civil litigation. It is perhaps most common—and necessary—in mass torts, class actions, and other aggregated litigation, in which corporate representative testimony is presented at trials that often occur years after the relevant events, the deposition, and the representative leaves the company.

With the proliferation of remote proceedings that was borne out of the recent global pandemic, the advent of trials playing out on a screen—in real time—through videoconference technology, has brought to the fore a new question: whether the geographic limitations of the subpoena power under the current Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should give way to the widespread availability of real-time, remote proceedings.