Questions and Answers.pdf

15JA0522Q00000011 Amendment 0001 Q&A

Q. Can you confirm that bidders may bid on deposition services only, as opposed to being required to bid on both Depositions and Grand Jury hearings?

A. The Government requires all offerors to bid on grand jury and deposition court reporting services.

Q. Can you confirm that court reporters who only handle depositions under this contract do not have to go through the security clearance, including the FP85 and fingerprinting, and that it is only Grand Jury court reporters who need to do that? The contract states that “all staff that will have access to grand jury materials” will need to be cleared, so it doesn’t appear so, but I want to be very clear about this.

A. Court reporters that handle depositions will be in the vicinity of sensitive materials therefore a clearance will be required.

Q. Would the government consider asking the incumbent for [historical] information so that there is a level playing field for all bidders?

A. The Government provided the best estimate of the total number of pages to be transcribed for grand jury and depositions.

Q. Can you advise the percentage of depositions that take place in Chicago and Rockford City limits versus those that take place outside of the City limits?

A. Depositions are predominantly held within the city limits of the Chicago and Rockford locations identified in Section C.1(b). In rare instances, services may be required at an alternate location.

Q. It is boilerplate language in most Government RFPs that court reporting firms will be given 2 business days’ notice to handle depositions, and that does appear in this RFP.

However, the reality of the situation is that there is a nationwide court reporter shortage, and 2 business days is not sufficient to procure a quality court reporter in some instances.

Considering the fact that most deposition witnesses are given 30 days notice prior to the deposition it seems like it would be an easy fix to notify the court reporting firm 2 weeks’ prior to depositions or even 1 week, would be an improvement and more in line with the current market. Other USAOs have made this change successfully with no adverse action to the Government. This is so important and necessary that if the 2-day notice requirement were left in this contract, this agency will not bid.

A. The Government will allow a one-week notice. Offerors are reminded that the Government requires offerors to provide key personnel that will be assigned to the requirement and the terms regarding the changing of key personnel are outlined in section C.11(b) of Attachment 1 – Description of service.

Q. The CLIN for “Expedited” is described as “before 9:00 PM the day of the deposition.”

Is this a final, proofread transcript or is this a rough draft? If this is actually for the final, proofread, version I suggest you change this to a rough draft, as that will be much more cost-effective for the government. There is virtually no reason that a final, proofread version would be needed by AUSAs, and the cost is immense. But if this were for a rough draft the AUSA could have access to the transcript for about ¼ of the cost.

A. The Government clarifies that the description for Expedited applies to a rough draft.

Q. I respectfully suggest you add a CLIN for 3-business days delivery, since in our experience this seems to be very popular with AUSAs. Since right now they only have the option of 5-day expedited or Daily (next day delivery), if they needed the transcript sooner than 5 business days their only option is to get it Daily, which is extremely expensive.

Adding a CLIN for 3-business days provides a needed service to AUSAs at a savings to the Government.

A. The Government agrees to add a CLIN for (3) business days delivery. The CLIN(s) for this service are 0023, 1023, 2023, 3023 and 4023 for grand jury and 0024, 1024, 2024, 3024, and 4024 for depositions. Offerors shall include in their price volume a unit price for these CLINs.

Section 2 – Commodity or Services schedule has been updated to reflect these changes. See Attachment “15JA0522Q00000011 Amendment 0001” for detailed changes.

Q. Regarding sending the original transcript to the witness to read and sign – the RFP is ambiguous about this. I strongly suggest you just make this part of the contract that the court reporting firm sends the original to the witness to read and sign. Not only is this standard operating procedure for most of the country (because it ensures the integrity of the transcript) but it takes a lot of work off your AUSA’s plates and it also saves the USAO postage to send the transcript back and forth, which can really add up. Certifying the transcript and keeping the integrity of the original is a part of the court reporter’s duties per state licensing, so this also helps ensure that all statutes are being followed.

A. The Government will not include this as part of the contract.

Q. Can invoices be submitted when ready, or must all invoices for a given month be submitted together?

A. Invoices can be submitted when ready.

Q. Are depositions currently (as of this writing) being handled in-person for the USAO NDIL or are they currently being handled remotely via Webex or Zoom technology due to Covid?

A. Depositions are being held remotely and in-person.

Q. If depositions are being handled remotely, will the USAO’s IT department assist the AUSA’s with any technical difficulties logging on to the platform or advance training or will the reporting firm be required to take this on?

A. The USAO’s IT department will assist the AUSAs with technical difficulties.

Q. If depositions are being handled remotely is there an estimate of when in-person depositions will be required to resume? Many court reporters will not return to the in-person format until there is no longer a mask mandate, as it is extremely difficult to hear speakers accurately who are wearing masks. The remote format, where all parties are separated and logging in remotely, is actually preferable to court reporters as speakers are not masked when they are alone in the room.

A. In-person depositions are handled in accordance with CDC guidelines as well as local and federal authority guidelines for social distancing.

Q. Are hard copy (printed) deposition transcripts required to be delivered to the USAO, or does electronic delivery suffice (via ASCII files and PDF files of each of the Full-sized certified transcript, Condensed Transcript and Word Index)?

A. Transcript Delivery instructions can be found in section C.5 of Attachment 1 – Description of Service.

Q. Can you clarify the minimum and maximum number of court reporters and videographers under this contract? In the Description of Services document it says something different than in the checklist document.

A. The required minimum (1)/maximum(4) number of court reporters is accurately reflected in section B.1(f) of Attachment 1 – Description of Service. Attachment 3 – Checklist has been updated to correct the typo in the written number of required court reporters. See Attachment 3 – Checklist (updated) for detailed changes.

Q. Is parking provided for court reporters and videographers at the 219 S. Dearborn Street location in Chicago? Parking is extremely difficult in this location, and both court reporters and videographers have a lot of equipment that needs to be transported.

A. Parking will not be provided. The cost of parking shall be accounted for in accordance with Section B.3 of Attachment 1 – Description of Service.

Q. Regarding submitting references for the past performance section, the RFP states:

Provide up to three (3) organizational past performance references for commensurate projects. My question is: If an agency were to hold two separate but similar contracts with the same government entity within the last 3 years, would that count as two references, or only one as it is the same government entity that the two separate contracts are held with?

A. If an agency held two separate contracts with the same Government entity the Government entity would count as one (1) reference however, the Government entity would be asked to provide past performance information for each contract.

Q. We are hoping to find out if there is (was) an incumbent contractor performing these services, or if this is a brand new contract. If there is an incumbent, could you please provide the current / previous contract number?

A. There is an incumbent currently performing these services. The contract number is DJJ-16-

D-EOA02-0022.