COURTREPORTINGINSIDER

At 6 pm on Super Bowl Sunday, viewers across the country will settle onto their couches surrounded by chips and buffalo wings to watch Super Bowl LIII. Here at WGBH, Janet Mahoney will settle into her office chair to provide a vital service: real-time closed captioning so that the 37 million people who are hearing-impaired can also enjoy the game. Through WGBH’s Media Access Group (MAG), Mahoney and a fellow stenographer in Western Massachusetts will “live-write” the full bro

A Taste of the Impeachment Trial The most action came in the guise of stenographers - all female - who stood at the front keyboarding every spoken word. They had their black machines draped around their necks on thick straps that held the keyboard at the perfect angle at their waist.  Tough job.  Total concentration on the task at hand. Just before the little hand of a big, antique, formal clock, mounted above Chief Justice Roberts on the face of the gallery railing, ticked t

When the House is in session, official reporters record every word. As Members debate and vote, the official reporters, also known as stenographers, transcribe all the proceedings for publication in the Congressional Record the next morning. Official reporters also precisely transcribe committee hearings. Whether debates are brief or last deep into the night, official reporters are on hand. When a heated argument about a tariff continued for two wordy weeks in 1890, reporters

Ah, the dreaded questions stenographers and court reporters have had to endure hearing over and over again: “Why are we still hiring stenographers when we could just be recording the proceedings and typing them up later?” and “Isn’t your job going to be obsolete soon?” For full disclosure, I am now a software engineer. But I’ve worked as a professional freelance stenographer for six years prior to my transition. Although my main source of income no longer comes from providi

Great interview with a court reporter from Las Vegas!...MORE #courtreporting #courtreporter #steno #stenographer

In 29 years beside the bench, court reporter Mindie Baab has seen more than her fair share of sad and scary court cases. The most heartbreaking involved children, forced to put on a brave face and testify before a jury of 12 strangers, a judge in a black robe above their right shoulder, lawyers in suits pacing in front of them, and the person they have to testify against, staring back at them. “A lot of times they can’t have their parent in the court room, or their parent is

The official court reporter to four different circuit judges and numerous associates for more than five decades is putting away her pen, paper and typewriter to head off into the sunset — or more accurately, to Sun City, Ariz., with husband Bob. That’s correct. No court-reporting machine or computer for this dynamo. For her entire career as a court stenographer, she has written the verbatim record of court proceedings on a pad of paper with an ink pen, using an artful system

For example, assume you have contracted a serious case of carpal tunnel syndrome from work as a court reporter, but, in your spare time, your hobbies include playing the guitar or blogging. In such a situation, the insurance company may try to argue that it was not your work that caused your ailment and, therefore, you are not qualified to receive workers’ compensation. That is where the experienced attorneys at Petro Cohen Petro Matarazzo come into play in being able to work

In late 2018, Menges initially requested that the Howard County council increase the salaries of his court reporter and three assistant court reporters, bringing them in line with the employees of the other courts. The requested raises amounted to an increase of $17,729.99. The Superior I employees’ salaries were lower than those of the other courts because Menges was the only local judge presiding over the area’s five courts to have not trimmed staff and taken part in the co

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Ohio Department is holding their mid-winter conference in Columbus this weekend. As hundreds of vets milled about during Friday’s events on the North Side, so did a handful of people from a different profession: court stenographers. The Ohio Court Reporters Association has been volunteering to transcribe the oral histories of veterans for the Veterans History Project. While they're doing live interviews for the conference, OCRA president Kelly Lin

Jennifer:           I heard about AB5 in the spring of last year because I write about politics in California so it'd been on my radar. Everything I heard about it was Uber and Lyft, Uber and Lyft. Having worked in the court reporting industry before as a freelancer there too, they were talking about the Dynamex decision, which you referenced. I just didn't think it would impact me at all because it didn't, on the surface, seem like it would be anything that would affect a fr

The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA), the country’s leading organization representing stenographic court reporters, captioners, and legal videographers, has designated Feb. 8-15 as the 2020 National Court Reporting & Captioning Week. The weeklong event will highlight the many aspects of court reporting and captioning that make it a viable profession, including good salaries, flexibility, interesting venues and the increasing demand for more reporters and captioners

It’s probably one of the most important jobs that no one has ever heard of or knows about. “They call it the profession that is the world’s best kept secret,” joked Teresa Ozuna, the court reporting services supervisor for the 10th Judicial Circuit Court reporters are a vital cog in the criminal justice system as they record, word for word, everything that is said in a proceeding — be it a trial, bond hearing or a sentencing. Without those transcripts, there couldn’t be an ap

The world’s fastest typists have been able to hit speeds up to 216 words per minute using QWERTY or Dvorak keyboards. That’s a lot faster than the rate at which most folks type (the average is 41 wpm), but not as fast as the speed with which stenogrophers can enter text using machines which support “chorded” text input so you can enter syllables or words by pressing multiple keys at once. Some stenographers can go at 300 words per minute, and the English language record is 36

He explained that the shortage has been a problem for more than 10 years. “People thought before that Court Reporters were on their way out because of technology. So there wasn’t an influx of new students,” he said, adding that lack of knowledge about the field contributed to the problem. But relying solely on digital recording devices has created other challenges. “There have been times when the trial went on for days and the recording device wasn’t working but no one kne

A disciplinary board ruling says the judicial court reporter for the murder trial of Dana Chandler deserves public reprimand for offering her opinion on the case in social media comments. Punishment for the court reporter, April Shepard, will be determined by the Kansas Supreme Court, which could issue a public reprimand or impose more serious consequences. The Board of Examiners of Court Reporters recommended discipline after Shepard admitted to violating a rule that requi

Consideration of a full-time court reporter position for the Washington County Court-at-Law was on the docket at today’s (Monday) County Commissioners meeting. County Court-at-Law Judge Eric Berg stated that the county traditionally hires part-time reporters. However, he said the state is dealing with a shortage of court reporters, saying “we’re losing them faster than we’re replacing them”. He added that schools statewide are simply not producing as many court reporters. Jud

Powell Markle is the daughter of Harold E. Powell Jr. and Lois Kay Powell of Mifflintown, sister of Major Wolf J. Powell, USMC, married to Sarah King Powell, Jacksonville, NC; and the mother of Tiffany L. Mast, Mifflintown, married to Justin Mast. She has one granddaughter, two nieces, and a nephew. A freelance court reporter for 20 years, Powell Markle graduated from Central Pennsylvania Business College. She is also a notary public, a member of the Pennsylvania Association

My mother has no fingerprints. Or, at least, she has no identifiable fingerprints. This is a fact she learned at a federal courthouse, where they run a background check on every contract employee before granting them access to the hallowed halls. My mother’s prints turned up as little more than a smudge. They did not give up any pertinent information as to who she was or what she might have done. My mother is not a criminal. She is a freelance court reporter, a career she beg

There is no shortage of trials, grand juries, depositions and hearings in Queens and throughout New York City. There is, however, a shortage of people to transcribe those proceedings — and to perform real-time captioning and other services where rapid, accurate writing is vital. Court reporting is a particularly valuable job, though reporters’ essential function can be overlooked by people unfamiliar with courtroom proceedings. “We’re guardians of the record and we want stude