Reader comments
Machines to do court reporting

I just retired from 30 years of law practice. I have no problem with digital recordings, including digital video, and some courts have been saving costs with them for years.

On the other hand, I've had numerous problems with court reporters. Lost recordings, incorrect transcripts, and waiting up to six months for typed transcripts. The costs are a ripoff for clients, attorneys and taxpayers. $3.50 a page is a joke. That's just a typing charge. For a ten-minute take-down the minimum fee is for a half a day...$250-$350, not what is quoted in the article, then they charge each attorney for transcripts. The ripoff is that you legally lose any right to appeal anything unless there is an "official transcript". I've had clients required to pay over $2,000 for a two-day trial, that usually turn out to be useless. Anything that reduces these costs is well worth trying, to bust this costly "inside monopoly" for legal access of citizens.

It's obvious to me that you're one of those attorneys, if you really were an attorney, that wanted to hire the cheapest person you could find. I would question whether you actually had a certified court reporter, and the prices you quoted are just plain false. I can tell you my rate right now: $25 an hour for the typing, with people talking around 250 words per minute. And the company I work for gets about 3.25 per page, and then I get approximately 70 percent of that final bill. Let's say I do an hour deposition, which is about 40 pages: 25 and hour, around 5.00 a page for 2 copies. One hour for the depo, plus 1/2 hour for setup and breakdown, plus drive time to the depo, at least an hour of editing, then an hour of proofreading, and then sending it out and paying for an actual proofreader to read it, then putting in corrections, printing a final product and getting it to production, then delivery charges to get it to demanding attorneys who want it right away. Now compare my net pay to your net pay.

We have a digital system in the Arizona Courts, all court prceedings are recorded, both audio and video, and if you want a copy of the hearing it cost $20 for a CD of the recording, or you can have a transcript made if you need it. In my 15 years of practice I have never had a problem with it.

This will be a good savings measure for the Utah Courts. I have worked with and been responsible for electronic recording devices used in courts since 1970, in Alaska, Massachusetts, and Akron, Ohio. While traditional reporters will never admit to this, transcripts produced from these recordings are every bit as accurate, if not more so, than what a typical reporter does. Recording technology has improved over the years to permit simultaneous voice separation, speech slowing without pitch changes, and digital recording which makes the recorded record even clearer and more reliable. I will tell you from experience that even the best reporter does not take a "verbatim" record. Because if this fact many reporters use recording devices as a back up to the stenotape record that they make.

This seems a nobrainer. As long as the cost of the equipment is less than hiring a person to do the job, it should be done.

You know what else is a "rip off"? Attorneys fees.

very few people who attempt to become court reporters make it. It is not the slow, enunciated, nontechnical proceedings that is a problem. It is the fast, technical, slurred, speaking more than one at a time with heavy accents that cause the problem. That is not a once-in-a-while thing. It happens frequently. We are the most efficent voice to text method. We are so good at it, we can do it in realtime. It cost a lot more for a lawyer to review a audio tape or a videotape than pay 3.50 a page. The are charging around 300 to 400 an hour. You do the math. This is not a new idea. It doesn't work. Just hope that your liberty or money is not on the line and you have to depend on this type of review of your proceedings.

My kudos to the court reporters. I have had to transcribe audio recordings and believe me it is not always easy, especially when you have two or three people trying to talk at the same time, people talking super fast and slurring their words. Yes, digital and audio records might save money but be sure it is working right, or you might just lose important records needed for appeals. I know of one case where the court lost the tapes. The testimony given at the first trial was not available to prove perjury.

I used to work for an attorney and their fees are the ridiculous ones. Call your attorney to check on the status of your case -- spend 10 minutes on the phone and he bills it at 15 or 20 minutes. You think he's doing all the paperwork -- most motions are fill in the blank with the secretary doing most of the work and all he has to do is sign his name. Court reporters are hardworking, in the trenches, people and a valuable asset.

How about replacing the judges with machines... Eliminate bias and corruption.

Scott - LOL! I realize we are in a digital age and technology is far superior to what it was 30 years ago, however, there is a lot to be said for paper records. I realize storage space is a pain, but how will these digital formats be stored? Will they become obsolete in 50 years like the old floppy disks?

I have done transcription too and it isn't the easiest. Unfortunately I don't think there will be a noticeable enough problem to go back from the digital only recordings.

The state will get a bargain because they are already paying thier attorneys no matter what, however, the people who have to hire private attorneys to watch a digital recording to get to a specific query will have to pay 200-500 per hour instead of turning to the appropriate page. This just transfers the cost to the individuals that have to hire attorneys.

The comment about decorum really strikes me. I've transcribed these things, and I can tell you, when there is no reporter in the courtroom, it devolves to a shouting match - he who talks loudest (or coughs, or sneezes) is what's being recorded. No do-overs.

My transcription rate for these things, when requested to to them, is DOUBLE my reporting fee. How is that saving money?

Good luck to the Utah reporters. Perhaps they should all decline to transcribe. Then see how the transcripts turn out, typed by nonlegal professionals, perhaps even nonnative English speakers.

Oh, who is monitoring these things, anyway? The clerks? You just added to their job description. If they were smart, they'd request a pay increase.

Here's the thing: IF court reporters wuld ask for repeats or clarifications, then their records might come close to what can be transcribed from digital recordings. But they won't ask. They're afraid to interrupt. Read some of the court reporter forums online. Many of the posts are reporters asking other reporters to help the guess what was said in a proceeding when they weren't even present. Transcriptions from digital media are more accurate, including all the words, verbatim. The only drawback to digital transcription is identifying the speakers, and hopefully that will somebody be solved by video courtrooms. Courtroom steno reporters have tremendous egos to think they can get it all, understand accents flying by them, etc. etc. Hogwash. They go home and listen to the recording and guess at it, just like a transcriptionist does. The difference is they have no idea what audio technology is capable of these days, so their sound isn't nearly as good.

Anonymous, you're living in a dream world. How many steno reporters can do realtime? LOL And what gives them super powers to be able to understand heavy accents and multiple voices? Reporters' egos and greed have brought them to where many find themselves now, unemployed.

Transcriptionist: Funny, if you are working in Utah as a transcriptionist for the courts, you get paid the same amount as the reporters, but then again haven't had the training. Now who has the ego? Or should I say bias? No wonder you might have difficulty seeing the difference that a reporter can make.

You're right, samsonight. I don't have the training. I have a pre-law degree and 25 years of legal experience, as opposed to to many reporters I used to work for who couldn't spell judgment or comprehend compex punctuation rules.

Transcriptionist,
Such venom for a typist! Were you one of the thousands to not make it through court reporting school?
Unfortunately, Utah will have to learn, as Florida did, the hard way. Just wait until a convicted felon is set free on appeal after the discovery that the digital record was of such poor quality that it was rendered unusable. The reviewing court had no choice but to let the convicted felon walk.
Where is the savings when you now have to purchase expensive equipment, man the equipment, and then transcribe a mess? This makes for a dubious record, rife with excess labor, when the job could have and should have been done by one professional reporter who has his/her own equipment, knows the laws and lingo, and brings a wealth of common sense and knowledge.
And no, I'm not a court reporter, but I wish I were.

Nope, never went to court reporting school, but I spent a lot of years as a paralegal finding mistakes in their transcripts and proving to them that things I had on a little secret tape recorder (required by my attorneys, always) were NOT as they came out in a transcript. Venom? Not hardly. But I do rspect the record, and it angers me when egos get in the way of making an accurate one. If I were on trial, I would much rather have an educated person like me listening repeatedly to four-track audio to discern what was said than being at the mercy of what a reproter thought they got. I've done it too many times. I've seen so many mistakes in steno when compared the recording that I've learned to be afraid of what they "think" they're getting.

And I'm not a typist. I'm a legal transcriptionist. There's a world of difference, namely education and experience. I am NOT saying any stay-at-home mom can do what I do. That's what I get paid a lot more than newbies who fall by the wayside.

The reporting profession is like any other profession, some good ones, some bad ones. I know the reporters that do realtime writing are very good and I believe there aren't many of those. As a reporter for many years I've transcribed some of the recordings from court for attys. and must say, I would never want my life situation depending on those.

As reporters, those of us who want to be the best we can be, try the hardest the we can to get everything said. As far as us being paid too much? When I think of the many years of walking into situations in a deposition and not knowing what was coming, whether expert testimony to arguing attys., to struggling to hear someone and/or understand an accent, we've never been paid enough due to the stress we face. Also, the many, many, many nights and weekends of our personal lives we've given up to get transcripts finished, we've still never been paid enough for that.

Knowing what I know now, I certainly would have done something else with a regular paycheck and benefits in order to have a life.