O'Brien & Bails

Michigan Court Reporters

By Dawn Houghton

This Court Reporting Life…The Mysteriously Missing Court Reporter

missing court reporterAs the owner of a court reporting firm, I am always trying to anticipate things that may go wrong when sending court reporters to depositions. But sometimes things come up we don’t expect. We always want to make the appropriate arrangements and avoid any mishaps that might occur, but sometimes it just isn’t possible to avoid some situations.

One day we got a frantic call from our client stating that our court reporter had not arrived for the deposition. They were ready to begin but had no court reporter. This is something no owner wants to hear. We pride ourselves on showing up for every deposition, not just on time, but early. We try to never, ever show up late. We also have several steps in our scheduling process to ensure that no deposition has slipped through cracks in our system. It is hectic to scramble to find a reporter to get to a deposition that has already been scheduled to begin, and we definitely don’t want that issue ever to occur.

So to find out we had a room full of attorneys without a court reporter was very bad news and our office went into action immediately to discover what happened.

This particular deposition was scheduled to take place at a local hotel conference room. I placed a call to my reporter to assure myself she was at the deposition location. She indicated she was. This made no sense at all. How could she be at the deposition, yet the scheduling attorney was calling asking why they didn’t have a court reporter?

My next step was to call the hotel staff to see if they could shed any light on the situation while at the same time my reporter was tracking down the staff at the hotel about the situation. We found out that the hotel had mistakenly set up two conference rooms for this one deposition. Some of the parties were taken to one room upon arrival and some of the participants were led to a second room. My court reporter was able to locate the other participants and all parties convened in one room. The deposition started later than scheduled but otherwise happened as planned.

So even though we try to anticipate every mishap that can happen, there are still situations that surprise us. Who could have predicted there would be two rooms for one deposition? Now we know what to do if the situation arises again.

If you found this article interesting, you might also like “The Court Reporting Profession is Alive and Well.”

By Dawn Houghton

Court Reporting as a Career

Court Reporting as a CareerMany court reporters working today will tell you that court reporting has been a very good field for them throughout the course of their career. If you’re thinking about becoming a court reporter, you may have questions about whether court reporting is a good career to pursue. We think it is, and want to tell you some of the reasons we think court reporting is a great profession.

Job Description

If you’ve ever seen a stenographer in court or on movies and television shows, you may have wondered what they really do. A court reporter is the person who sits in the courtroom or in a deposition who takes down every spoken word during the proceedings. They prepare official transcripts for use by attorneys, judges and litigants. These transcripts are used as the official record of the events that took place during the deposition, hearing or trial. Court reporters are responsible for certifying that the content of the transcript is accurate and true to the best of their ability.

Education

To become a court reporter, one must go through a college program that teaches the skill of steno writing at a very high level of speed and accuracy. It can take two to five years to reach the level of skill that is required to receive certification to work as a court reporter. Reporters have to demonstrate that they can write at a speed of 225 words per minute with 97 percent accuracy.

Required Skills

Court reporters need excellent communication, organizational and time management skills. Reporters need the ability to work in a high-pressure environment. They know how to work under a deadline. The documents prepared are the only official account of the court proceedings and are vital to the credibility of the judicial system. Court reporters take this responsibility very seriously.

Making the Record

Court reporters use a computer and stenotype machine to take down the spoken words they hear. The stenotype machine allows the reporter to use a form of shorthand by using sounds of words to record data. The computer uses software called computer-aided transcription to translate the information into English.

Technology Advancements

Over the years, technology has changed the way in which reporters do their job. Court reporters are using more advanced technology to provide instant transcription in rough draft form on computer screens while the proceeding is in session. This is called realtime translation. This technology is also used to allow the deaf and hard-of-hearing community access to what is happening in a live classroom, meeting or theater. This skill is also used to caption live television shows, such as newscasts. Court reporting technology now often involves videoconferencing, live internet streams and specialized print programs for transcript formatting, just to name a few.

Lifestyle

So is court reporting a good profession? To help answer this question, we want to give you some of the benefits of being a court reporter. Court reporters who love their job will list some or all of these benefits.

  • Scheduling flexibility
  • Salary
  • Rewarding work
  • Crucial role in the legal industry
  • Variety of jobs available

Scheduling Flexibility

Most court reporters work from home offices when producing legal transcripts. The reporting firm assigns the reporter on a deposition assignment. The deposition may last from one hour to eight hours. Once finished, the court reporter returns to his or her home office to create the verbatim transcript. The portions of the job performed at home create a flexibility of schedule that many reporters enjoy.

Salary

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics quotes the median income of a court reporter in the United States in 2010 as $47,700. Salary.com quotes the median figure as $52,000. These are median figures. Some reporters make more and some make less. The salary can be dependent on the geographic area you live in, the type of court reporting you do, and the amount of hours you want to work each week. As a freelance reporter, if you want to make more, you can make yourself available for more depositions and work more hours. If you want to work part time, you will bring home less income but will be able to make a good income for the part-time hours you work.

Rewarding Work

Court reporters are at the center of the activity in a courtroom and in discovery depositions. They hear witnesses testify about all sorts of topics. They listen to interesting court cases. Every day brings different subject matter to work on. For instance, one day you could hear the details of a personal injury case where a witness was injured in a car accident. The next day you may be involved in a criminal case with witnesses testifying about a robbery they witnessed. This type of variety is what many court reporters enjoy.

Throughout a long career, a court reporter has many ways to continue to be challenged and grow as a professional. In the beginning, the challenge is to pursue training and education in order to prepare for initial certification. Here are just a few challenges that can help a reporter learn and grow:

  • Pursuing higher skill certification
  • Learning realtime reporting
  • Becoming a broadcast captioner
  • Exploring CART work with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community
  • Continuing education
  • Participating in state and national associations

A court reporter can mold his or her career in many different directions. Having access to continuing challenges helps a reporter to develop as a professional, as well as grow his or her career.

Crucial Role in the Legal Industry

A court reporter is responsible for keeping the official record. As an officer of the court, a court reporter acts as a representative of the court even in a deposition setting outside of the courtroom. He or she is also the person charged with swearing witnesses and administering the oath.

Court reporters are shown much respect from the legal community, be it attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants or judges. Court reporters earn this respect by taking very seriously the responsibilities imparted to them. Many reporters enjoy this earned respect and find it a pleasant environment to work in.

Diverse Professional Paths

We talk about court reporting as one profession. Within this one profession, there are many capacities in which a court reporter can work. Some of these areas are:

  • Official court reporter
  • Freelance court reporter
  • State bureau court reporter
  • Mediation and arbitration reporter
  • Realtime reporter
  • CART provider for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community
  • Live television broadcast captioners

If you’re thinking of a career in court reporting, the best action to take is to talk to a court reporter and see what they have to say about the profession. It is even a good idea to talk to more than one reporter so that you gain a balanced view of what the work is really like.

If you found this article interesting, you might also like “The Top 10 Skills of the Best Legal Assistants.”

By Dawn Houghton

Do I Need An Internship Before Working As A Court Reporter?

Court Reporter InternshipSitting in with a court reporter or interning with an agency is required by most court reporting programs as a requirement of graduation. Although many agencies do not offer an internship program, they do allow students to sit in with reporters and observe what a typical job may be. Sitting in with a reporter provides valuable experience. It can serve as motivation to pass out of school faster, provide extra practice time, help show what the profession entails and what a real-life job may be like. Learning procedure in class and practicing to a teacher’s dictation is not the same as experiencing it first-hand.

Benefits of an Internship

Sitting in court or depositions with a court reporter provides extra practice time and can motivate students to pass out of school faster. Working reporters may even share tips on how to write efficiently and accurately. Some fortunate students meet reporters who are willing to take them under their wing in a non-official or official mentor capacity. Oftentimes, reporters will share their own experience with school and offer helpful advice in how to succeed in school and beyond. These connections you make with reporters can serve as potential contacts in helping you find work after graduation. It always helps to be friendly and ask questions.

Hands-On Experience

As any reporter or student interning can tell you, a teacher’s dictation can be one-dimensional. If there is only one person doing the voice of two or three different people, practicing colloquy can be unrealistic. This is not the teacher’s fault. They are just simply one person. Experiencing colloquy while sitting in will help acclimate a student to a professional setting where you may have multiple attorneys, sometimes speaking over one another. It’s good to see how the reporter handles those types of situations and to also imagine what you may do. In times like those, you may want to stop the attorneys and ask them to take turns speaking since you can only take down one person at a time. It’s always good to prepare yourself for unfamiliar situations that school hasn’t prepared you for.

Not only does interning prepare you with colloquy, but it also helps prepare you with filling out job sheets, reading and understanding captions, writing under pressure, and transcribing and editing transcripts. Many students struggle with these aspects of reporting since schools usually focus more on attaining speed. Transcribing can be one of the most beneficial things a student can do. Becoming familiar with how your CAT system works, such as hot keys, include files, etc., will significantly cut down on transcription time upon starting work. An internship can offer you the experience you need to become a successful reporter.

Finding Internship Opportunities

When looking for an internship opportunity, there are a few things to keep in mind. Finding a good agency to intern with is crucial. Although any experience is good experience, you should also think of interning as a form of networking and finding potential employers. Spend your time interning with reputable and established agencies for whom you would like to work. Once you have found a few that you would like to intern with and potentially work for, call the agencies, explain that you are a court reporting student, and ask if you could sit in with one of their reporters. Most agencies will say yes. Others will ask you to call back another day when they have work for you to sit in on. Either way, be persistent.

Interning is probably one of the best things a student can do for themselves while at school. It gives you hands-on, real-life experience that schools simply can’t offer. A student who pushes back interning or doesn’t intern enough is severely disadvantaging themselves when they enter into the workforce. It is better to invest the hours now to learn the foundations of working in the real world than to work in the real world and be unprepared.

If you found this article interesting, you might also like “Freelance Court Reporting versus Official Court Reporting.”

By Dawn Houghton

Finding The Right Court Reporting Program For You

finding a court reporting programSo you’ve decided you want to be a court reporter. Now comes the task of finding a program that fits you and the goals you are trying to accomplish. But where do you start? How do you find court reporting programs that are reputable and will allow you to successfully learn the skills required to become a court reporter?

Where can I find good court reporting programs?

The National Court Reporters Association works to provide guidelines and requirements for court reporting educational programs. Working with the U.S. Department of Education, NCRA’s purpose is to ensure that good quality programs are available to you, the potential student. They know that you need to have a way to find good programs and learn more about them so that you can choose one that’s right for you.

How does school program accreditation and certification work?

NCRA and the U.S. Department of Education have established a list of qualities a program must possess in order to receive accreditation. NCRA has established the Council on Approved Student Education (CASE), an organization which establishes the General Requirements and Minimum Standards (GRMS). This set of standards is the test each program is run through to receive their accreditation and become a school that is NCRA Certified.

As you begin to investigate programs, ask your educational institution whether they are NCRA certified. If they are, you can rest assured that this program is credible and offers a valid program.

Not only does NCRA help programs receive certification, they also have created a list of programs in the United States that are available for you to choose from. Click here to see all of the accredited and approved court reporting programs in the country. There are also a couple in Canada that are accredited and certified.

What types of programs are available?

As you review this list of programs, you will see letters and initials in the descriptions. These letters designate what type of program is being offered. Here are a list of the types of programs you can participate in:

(D)  = Day program leading to graduation
(N)  = Complete night program leading to graduation
(EC)= Evening courses – must transfer to day to complete program
(A)  = Associate degree
(B)  = Baccalaureate degree
(BC)= Broadcast captioning
(CT)= CART provider
(ON)= Online program

You can see, there are a variety of ways to receive your education. Are you able to attend classes during the day? There are day programs for you. Do you need to find classes that are available in the evening? There are complete night programs for you. Are you interested in the specialty of broadcast captioning? You can find programs specifically for this interest.

The NCRA list of programs is a good place to start. Once you find programs you are interested in, contact the program directly to gather further details and information.

If you found this article interesting, you might also like “Freelance Court Reporting Versus Official Court Reporting.”

By Dawn Houghton

Freelance Court Reporting Versus Official Court Reporting

Freelance Court Reporting Versus Official Court ReportingWhen people ask what I do for a living and I respond, “I am a court reporter”, it usually merits one of these two questions:

  1. “Which court do you work in?”
  2. “So, you work in courtrooms like those people on Law & Order that I see typing on machines, right?”

But little do they know that there are actually two main types of court reporters, freelance reporters and official reporters and there is a huge difference between the two.

Freelance Court Reporters

Freelance court reporters can be considered independent contractors, which means you are technically “self-employed”, or employees, depending how the court reporting firm is structured.  Freelancers work for court reporting agencies which are hired by law firms, attorneys, corporations and other organizations. These agencies work with freelancers to cover depositions, examinations under oath, hearings and board meetings.

Freelance court reporters are typically on-call. Most agencies call a reporter one day in advance of an assignment. One perk of being a freelancer is that you usually travel to different locations. Some reporters enjoy this aspect and prefer not to work in the same location every day. Another benefit of freelancing is that you get to return home after the job is done to work on transcription, and you can work comfortably in your own home. However, a downside of the job is that freelancers usually don’t receive benefits such as health insurance.

Official Court Reporters

Official court reporters are employed by the courts and are sometimes assigned to a particular judge or courtroom. They can cover a variety of court cases, from lower court cases to high-profile cases, depending on which district or court they work in. Many jurisdictions require official reporters to pass certifications, such as the RPR (Registered Professional Reporter) and CRR (Certified Realtime Reporter), that test their written knowledge and skills before qualifying to work in the courts. But even upon passing the required certifications, being accepted for an officialship normally takes time. It is common for reporters to wait years before being considered since courts receive a high volume of applicants. Many reporters desire an officialship since it offers more stability as opposed to freelancing. Official reporters have set salaries, set hours, and benefits such as health insurance and pensions. There are also opportunities to earn additional money on top of your set salary, such as when attorneys order transcripts.

In May 2012, Forbes listed a court reporter/stenographer position as one of the best paying jobs that do not require a four-year degree. There are many pros and cons to both positions as a freelance court reporter and an official court reporter. Being an official court reporter provides the stability that many freelancers covet. On the other hand, reporters who value their flexibility tend to enjoy being freelance court reporters.