Steno

Deposition Zen

A lawyer overwhelmed with deposition chaos finds enlightenment.

Watch the full campaign · 1:24

The Strategy

Steno handles the logistics behind depositions for law firms: the court reporters, the video, the transcripts and the billing. The people it sells to are trial attorneys, and the paralegals who schedule for them. Ask either one about deposition day and you get the same list. Fees. Phone calls. Missing transcripts. Too many vendors to chase. Steno's promise is that one company takes all of that off their desk, so they can focus on the case.

Legal ads tend to play it safe. Steno wanted to be "professionally cheeky," which meant poking fun at anything except the customer. So the joke couldn't be that lawyers are behind the times. It had to be that the chaos around them is real, and a little absurd.

In our first script, a burnt-out attorney went to see a guru in an apartment full of crystals and tapestries. Steno's lawyers didn't buy it. A lawyer buried in deposition chaos doesn't have time to go anywhere. So the guru came to him. Steno's team also asked us to name the pain out loud instead of just showing it, and to never make a court reporter the villain.

The spot opens in a cluttered law office. Greg sits at his desk, surrounded by binders and file boxes. Across from him sits a guru in a headband and a flowered robe, with a little red grill set up beside the desk. He senses chaotic energy. Greg starts listing what's wrong with his depositions, and the guru asks if he's ready to commit, mind and body.

The two 15-second spots keep the training going: candles, a one-finger push-up, a balance on the scales of justice, and an ice bath in a kiddie pool in the middle of the office. Every spot lands on Steno's line: focus on the case, not the logistics.

The Process

Steno's team helped shape the look. Greg lost his suit jacket for a plain button-up, the way attorneys really dress at the office. The pencil he was going to balance on became a scales of justice. And his phones became iPhones, which fit Steno's lawyers better than the Android we had planned.

We shot it in one day, in a small studio where we built the lawyer's office from scratch.

The fun part was the stunts. For the one-finger push-up, we put a simple harness on the actor and ran it off camera, where two crew members raised and lowered him in time with each push-up. Solving problems like that on set is the best part of making videos.

The ice bath was a fun problem too. We looked at real ice, with the actor in a wetsuit from the waist down. But we didn't want anyone sitting in ice for take after take, so we went with fake ice. Our hair and makeup artist sold the cold with a pale blue face and blue lips. The coal's glow and smoke were added after the shoot.

We delivered a 30-second main spot, two 15s and three 6-second spots.

The Reaction

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