And then I tell them that a verbatim record is a record of what was said.

That is all it is.

It is not a record of what happened, and it is not a record of what anybody meant, and the gap between those three things is where every single case any of them will ever sit through actually lives.

I do not tell them about Esme.

I have never mentioned my niece in that room.

What I say is: “You are going to be the most accurate person in every room you are ever in, and it is going to be very easy to mistake that for being the most correct person in the room, and those are not the same and I would like you to hear it now from somebody who found out the expensive way.”