O'Brien & Bails

Michigan Court Reporters

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.

By Dawn Houghton

Court Reporting – A Profession, Not Just a Job

Court Reporting ProfessionWhat is the difference between a job and a profession? A job typically requires minimal experience and education. All that is needed is a minimum amount of skills to get the job done. A profession requires a high level of knowledge and skills. Individuals in professions are not easily replaceable since their education, extensive training, and skills make them unique assets. As a result, professions generally have higher levels of compensation.

High Skill Levels

Court reporters must graduate from an accredited court reporting program at the writing speed of 225 words per minute. Court reporting students learn a writing theory called “stenographic shorthand”, which they must know how to read and write on their stenographic machines. Stenographic machines enable reporters to write at a faster rate through condensing words to phonetic syllables. This method is much faster than typing on a QWERTY keyboard. The language of court reporting is complicated, and students must become proficient at this unique skill.

Reporters typically spend several hours writing the verbatim testimony of witnesses. However, work doesn’t end when they leave the office. Reporters then return to their home or office to edit, research and proof for several more hours. A good rule of thumb is if the writing of the testimony took an hour, it will take two to three hours to edit, research, proof and produce into a transcript that hour of testimony.  Because a reporter’s job is centered around writing, transcribing, and editing, excellent verbal skills are required. It is imperative that reporters are well-read and educated so that transcripts are accurate and coherent. Reporters should always be in pursuit of enhancing their verbal and word recognition skills.

Professional Association Participation

Reporters typically belong to various court reporting associations such as the National Court Reporter’s Association (NCRA) or state-specific organizations such as the Michigan Association of Professional Court Reporters (MAPCR). These organizations provide great opportunities to network with other agencies and reporters. They also hold conferences where they meet and educate reporters on current trends, issues, or new technology. For example, the NCRA holds major conferences in different states each year. Reporters can attend special speaking engagements or even be the first individuals to experience new reporting technology.

The NCRA is also responsible for national court reporting certifications. Although being a member means you must pay an annual fee, being certified puts you at an advantage. It communicates to attorneys and agencies that you are a qualified and competent reporter because you have to pass written and practical tests with each certification that proves you are at the certified level. Being certified leads to better opportunities and levels of compensation.

A Diverse and Enriching Profession

People often misconceive that reporters are merely individuals who take down the record, go home, print out the transcript, and that’s the extent of their occupation. But there is far more to the profession than what they often realize. Not only does reporting involve extensive education and training, but a reporter’s education extends beyond school. A wise reporter never stops learning and enhancing their skills, often doing research and extra reading on various topics in order to broaden their scope of understanding of the world around them. Reporters often attend conventions, conferences, and become certified for the sake of building their career. For these many reasons, court reporting is a profession and not just a job. Court reporting is far more diverse and enriching than what a typical job can offer.

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

By Dawn Houghton

Court Reporting Certifications and Standards

Court Reporting CertificationsThe skills required to be a court reporter are numerous. You have to be able to write accurately at high rates of speed. You need specialized knowledge in many areas, such as legal procedures, grammar, punctuation, technology and professional practices.

The National Court Reporters Association offers many certifications at different skill and experience levels in the court reporting industry. These certifications are designed to present high standards by which court reporters practice their profession. These standards allow for more uniform practices by court reporters all over the country. The standards are high and many reporters have attained several of these certifications.

If you are not familiar with the various types of certifications NCRA offers, here is a listing with NCRA’s descriptions of what is required to receive the certificate.

RPR (Registered Professional Reporter)

The RPR is a prerequisite for the RMR and CRR. It is divided into two portions: written knowledge test (WKT) and skills knowledge test (SKT). The WKT is a 115 multiple-choice test measuring your knowledge in technology, reporting and professional practices. You must pass with a scaled grade of 70 or higher. The SKT consists of 180 words per minute literary, a 200 words per minute jury charge, and 225 words per minute Q&A. You must pass with a 95% accuracy.

RMR (Registered Merit Reporter)

To qualify, you need to be RPR certified and an NCRA member. The SKT is 200 words per minute literary, 240 words per minute jury charge, 260 words per minute Q&A. Passing grade is 95% accuracy.

RDR (Registered Reporter)

You must be an RMR and hold a continuous NCRA membership status. The exam is a 115 multiple-choice test on technology, reporting and professional practices. To pass, you must attain a scaled score of 70 or higher.

CRR (Certified Realtime Reporter)

To qualify, you must be an NCRA member and an RPR. The SKT is a 200 words per minute two-voice Q&A. You must achieve 96% accuracy.

CBC (Certified Broadcast Captioner)

You must be an NCRA member. The exam is divided into two parts: written and skills. The WKT is a 100 multiple-choice test that measures your knowledge on writing realtime, language skills, realtime writing, and research. You must pass with a scaled score of 70 or higher. The SKT is a five-minute, 180 words per minute literary test. You must pass with 96% accuracy.

CCP (Certified CART Provider)

You must be an NCRA member. There are two portions of the exam: written and skills. The WKT is a 100-question, multiple-choice test on your knowledge on writing realtime, research, language skills, and Communication Access Realtime Translation. The SKT is a five-minute, 180 words per minute literary test. You must pass with a 96% accuracy rating.

CVLS (Certified Video Legal Specialist)

This certification qualifies you as a legal videographer. First, you must attend a two-day seminar called, “Video in the Legal Environment”. Second, you must pass a 100-item multiple-choice test (passing score only stays on your record for three years). Third, you must pass a hands-on production examination. This is where you are graded on your video abilities in mock depositions. Again, your passing score only stays on your record for three years.

CRI (Certified Reporting Instructor)

This professionally certifies and qualifies court reporting teachers. You must either be an educator, administrator or reporter. You must also be an NCRA member beforehand. To become certified, you must attend a 13-hour NCRA Council on Approved Student Education Sponsored Orientation Session for CRI. This certification is valid for three years upon completion of seminar.

MCRI (Master Certified Reporting Instructor)

This is the highest merit for a reporting instructor. It is divided into four parts:

Part 1: You must have a Bachelor’s degree, be CRI certified, currently teach in a court reporting program, have five years teaching experience in a court reporting program, provide evidence of professional and community involvement, and write an essay on your philosophy of education.
Part 2: You must compile a portfolio within one year of admission. Your portfolio will provide evidence of your professional development in the last five years. It will include evidence of superior teaching, court reporting knowledge, teaching pedagogy, and professional community service.
Part 3: You must complete at least 70% of the RPR and MCRI written tests.
Part 4: You must maintain your certification by submitting your curriculum vitae by June 1st of the year the MCRI is going to expire.

CPE (Certified Program Evaluator)

This certifies the individual in evaluating and certifying undergraduate court reporting programs. You must take two e-seminars (“Interpersonal skills” and “Introduction to the CPE certification”).

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in “The Transition from Court Reporting Student to Working Court Reporter”.

By Dawn Houghton

Transition from Court Reporting Student to Working Court Reporter

court reporting studentsLearning about reporting is far different than actually working as a reporter. Students often worry about whether or not they’ll be able to handle a court reporting career, but there are steps you can take to avoid being unprepared for the life of a working court reporter.

Practice Good Time Management

First, you need to practice good time management while in school. Time management is essential to any job, particularly court reporting, since transcribing, editing, and furnishing a final transcript is time-consuming. You need to be able to handle your personal life and your professional life so that you can finish everything within a timely manner. Agencies appreciate it when you hand in work sooner than their standard deadlines. Time management is a highly important skill in the profession of court reporting.

Work On Your Steno Dictionary

Second, you need to work on your dictionary. Working on your dictionary after class and at home will help you tremendously. Teachers and reporters alike stress the importance of having a great dictionary. You can begin to work on adding to your vocabulary and even defining misstrokes. Defining your misstrokes will cut down on time spent proofing and editing transcripts. Readback will be easier as well, which is something that all reporters appreciate. The time you spend on your dictionary now will mean less time you will spend on building your dictionary when you begin working.

Build Stamina

Third, you need to build your stamina for writing. This is crucial since some teachers only dictate for twenty minutes at most. While any practice is helpful, the reality is that you need to practice far longer than that. Depositions often last for hours, and if you don’t have the stamina to keep going, you run the risk of stress due to fatigue. Find a way to practice longer stretches of writing to prepare yourself for the real work world.  Try writing the news on TV or your favorite shows.  This will build endurance.

Participate in an Internship

Fourth, you need to intern. Interning is probably one of the most important things you can do to benefit your journey into court reporting. Interning gives you real experience that can’t be learned in class. Some of the reporters you meet while interning will give you wisdom on how to excel in the career and may even become your mentors. Interning will build your stamina, writing skills and working knowledge. It also helps prepare you with traveling to different locations, which is a large part of the profession. It is important to become familiar with following directions correctly so that you arrive to a job on time. Interning will also provide you with valuable connections with agencies and reporters. It’s important to be friendly with everybody you meet, especially agency employees (that includes receptionists). People will remember you and provide feedback to their employers. Many students have been hired at reputable agencies because of their connections made during internships.

Keep Connections With Peers

Lastly, keep in contact with your friends from school. Moving from student to reporter is a daunting journey, so it is important to keep in contact with people who are on the same journey as you are. A support group consisting of other reporters will help you cope or laugh about situations that your family and non-reporter friends won’t understand. Your friends may also help you find work or even give you insight into the company culture of agencies for which they work.

While every individual is unique and there is not one perfect formula, these points will help smooth the transition from student to reporter. So be sure to practice healthy time management, work on your dictionary, build your stamina, become an intern, and remain friends with your peers. These will all serve as precursors to becoming a successful reporter.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also be interested in our special guide “The Top 10 Skills of the Best Legal Assistants.”

By Dawn Houghton

The Court Reporting Profession is Alive and Well

court reporting professionFor years, people have been warning court reporters and students that the future of court reporting is doomed. But contrary to the warnings, the industry has not collapsed. It is alive and well, even thriving due to advancements that have strengthened the profession.

Over 30 years ago, when I became a court reporter, I heard the warnings, “Court reporters will be replaced by electronic recording….you won’t have a job once video replaces you…voice recognition is going to kill court reporting.”

Over the years, I have seen these arguments and many more fall by the wayside. One by one, they were proven wrong as our skills grew stronger, our technology blossomed, and new career paths opened up that widened our profession. A career in court reporting is as stable today as it was years ago when I first began reporting.

Projections

The United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor and Statistics publishes the Occupational Outlook Handbook. This handbook is a source for career information about many different professions. The profiles feature hundreds of occupations and describe the occupations, the work environment, how to enter the field, and more. Each profile also includes employment projections for the 2010–2020 decade. The Occupational Outlook Handbook lists court reporting and gives facts about the industry that are beneficial to anyone who is thinking of entering the field. These facts are also reassuring to court reporters who are still hearing warnings of job shrinkage.

There are currently 22,000 court reporters estimated to be employed in the United States. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects this number to grow by 14% from 2010 to 2020. This is hardly an indication of a shrinking job market. In fact, the field is expected to grow at an average pace when compared to other occupations.

New Technology

The technology of court reporting has evolved over the years, and continues to advance as computers and the internet advance in sophistication. For years, the only technology used was a stenotype machine and a typewriter.

In the early ’80s, computer-aided transcription became the norm. Court reporters were able to teach computers how to read steno notes and help turn those notes into transcripts. Over the years, the computer-aided technology has developed into realtime reporting, allowing our steno notes to be instantaneously translated at a high rate of accuracy.

Video began to be incorporated to allow for video depositions accompanied by traditional transcription. With the evolution of the Internet, we now have the capability to transmit video, audio and realtime transcription to remote locations. The realtime nature of this new technology means parties can effectively participate in proceedings that are taking place in different geographical locations without leaving their own office.

These new technologies allow court reporters to not only stay relevant to legal proceedings, but also offer wider and more convenient services to clients

New Skills

With the new technology of computer-aided transcription in real time, court reporters began to evolve the traditional shorthand theory into a new system of writing that allowed for more accurate realtime transcription. Over the last 20 years, many reporters have retrained themselves in a new way of writing. This higher level of realtime accuracy allows reporters to project realtime translation and also deliver a highly accurate rough draft immediately upon the conclusion of the proceedings. The realtime translation is helpful to the attorneys while they are asking their questions of the witness.  The rough draft being supplied is popular for attorneys preparing for an upcoming trial who want the convenience of having the written testimony in front of them immediately after the proceedings have concluded.

Another skill that has developed in the last couple decades is legal video. The profession, as a whole, has pioneered legal video and streaming video so that they may deliver these services to clients who can take advantage of the technology and use it to their best benefit. The National Court Reporters Association offers certification for videographers who are interested in providing a high level of professional legal video to clients. This standardization allows the court reporting industry to continue to provide highly professional video for legal use.

The ability to commandeer these new technologies and use them to offer a wider variety of services has allowed court reporters to continue to stay relevant over the years.

New Career Paths

Once reporters adapted their writing to provide highly accurate realtime translation, reporters began offering their services to the deaf community and people who are severely hard of hearing. These realtime skills are now employed to provide broadcast captioning of live television shows, such as news broadcasts. Television captions are typically created before a show airs. In the case of live television shows, there is no opportunity to create captions before the show airs. Working with television stations, court reporters began using their skills to translate the spoken word in realtime and send it out with live television shows.

Realtime also became the method to provide Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) to individuals in schools, the work place and live theater. With the CART provider writing what is being spoken, the person receiving assistance can then read the captions from a computer screen and is able to participate in live discussions that would typically be extremely difficult without the live captions being provided.

These new fields of broadcast captioning and Communication Access Realtime Translation has broadened a court reporter’s choices of fields to work in and expanded the number of jobs available in the profession.

A Profession That is Strong and Growing

This equation of new technologies, new skills and new career paths adds up to a profession that is alive and thriving. When people tell me court reporting is dying, I know they are wrong because of the developments I have watched and participated in over the years. The truth is the field of court reporting is stronger now than ever.