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Archive for January, 2019

Study Shows Court Reporters Have Trouble With Dialects

Posted on: January 28th, 2019 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

A study set to be published in the journal Language looked at how well court reporters in Philadelphia transcribe dialects and found that 40 percent of the sentences they had transcribed were wrong, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Linguists from the University of Pennsylvania, a sociologist from New York University and a co-founder of Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity found that among the 27 court reporters they tested, 67 percent of their attempts at paraphrasing inaccurate, and 11 percent were called “gibberish.”

Court reporters must test at a 95 percent accuracy rate to be certified in Pennsylvania.

Linguists note that African American English is a dialect that has its own grammatical rules.

African American English speakers have “a very reasonable expectation” to be understood in the court system, said  Jessica Kalbfeld, a doctoral candidate in sociology at New York University and co-researcher on the study.

“They’re not getting the benefits of those rights, because people aren’t understanding them and don’t even know that that’s happening,” she told the Inquirer.

In one example, a speaker in the study said, “That cop partner been got transferred,” meaning that the police officer had been transferred a while ago, and the court reporter recorded the line as: “That cop partner, Ben, got transferred.”

Black court reporters in the study scored higher in paraphrasing and syntax, but their transcriptions weren’t any more accurate.

Researchers also tested seven lawyers, three of whom spoke African American English, and found that black lawyers scored much higher in their comprehension of African American English than attorneys of other races.

Researchers said it’s possible that social differences and enduring disapproval of African American English, even among black people who speak it, may be a reason why black court reporters as well as non-black reporters scored poorly on their transcription.

“It could be they’re coming across forms that could not be in their speech community,” said researcher Taylor Jones, a doctoral candidate in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.

New Technology Used In Court Reporting Is Coming To Medical Transcription

Posted on: January 21st, 2019 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

Technology has changed the way court reporting is done, and electronic medical transcription is not far behind.

The global medical transcription market is expected to grow annually at a rate of more than 6 percent over the period 2018-2022, according to the latest market research report by Technavio, a leading global technology research and advisory company.

A key factor driving the market’s growth is the increase in healthcare IT spending, the company reported. And specifically, they said, growth in IT spending on medical transcription will drive the market growth. The need for digital documentation and integration of data will lead to increased IT spending on healthcare.

In its report, Technavio highlights the emergence of voice recognition technologies as one of the key emerging trends in the global medical transcription market.

It notes how voice recognition software can automate the process of transcribing medical reports. The software converts audio files to text without human intervention. This software also reduces the efforts by physicians to record and send voice files for transcription.

Despite language barriers, speed of speech, and incorrect pronunciations, the software reduces the time needed to transcribe medical reports. However, transcriptionists will be required to edit and proofread these automated transcripts.

“Software automated text data is easy to incorporate in information systems and for sharing information with other healthcare professionals for further treatment. For instance, Dragon medical speech recognition software by Nuance Communications has advanced features such as increased accuracy and vocabulary with a rapid process involving end-to-end security. This software can also be integrated with almost all information systems such as EMR,” says a senior analyst at Technavio.

The Americas held the highest share of the global medical transcription market in 2017, accounting for a market share of around 48 percent. The Asia Pacific area currently holds the smallest share of the market and is expected to see the biggest increase in its market share over the forecast period.

Becoming A Court Reporter Offers Tangible Benefits

Posted on: January 14th, 2019 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

A precise, accurate record of legal proceedings is a vital part of the justice system. Although electronic court reporting technology is making headway, there is still a need for court reporters to ensure those records exist.

court reporters

Court reporters are in demand in what can be a great career.

However, projections indicate that the shortage represents nearly 5,500 qualified reporters. That means current court reporters will experience an increased demand for their services. Court reporting firms and freelance reporters will likely encounter more and more opportunities for business. Some experienced professionals may even find themselves caught up in bidding wars for their expertise.

Some of the benefits of pursuing court reporting include:

Less demanding education requirements — An expensive, four-year college education financed by loans is not necessary to become a court reporter. You can become a certified voice reporter in as little as six months by studying online.

High earning potential — The earning potential for a verbatim court reporter right out of school is an average of $40,000 nationwide, and wages increase with experience.

Freelance options — With the variety of industries in need of court reporters, professionals can create freelance careers, choosing their own hours and creating a flexible.

Stable career, growing demand and increased opportunities

Since a growing number of fields including business, politics, medicine, professional sports and television need real-time court reporters and transcriptions of conferences, seminars and video, the need for people with these skills will continue to grow.

The median age of working court reporters is 51 years old, which is almost 10 years older than the median age of workers in all occupations, 42 years old. More than 70 percent of the court reporting population is 46 years or older.

And who will replace all of the retiring workers? Again, technology is progressing at a rapid rate, but court reporters are still needed for the time being. But court reporting schools across the nation have reported a steady decrease in enrollment over the last two decades.

Jury Selection Is Important To The Judicial Process

Posted on: January 7th, 2019 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

Having an accurate court reporting service on hand is an important part of any trial, and Court Scribes is one of the best. But there are obviously a lot of other parties involved in making a trail successful: attorneys and their staff members, an impartial judge, and in the case of a criminal prosecution a jury of your peers.

But how does that panel of people hearing the case come to be seated?

The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution grants criminal defendants the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury representing a cross-section of the community. The right to a jury only applies to offenses in which the penalty is imprisonment for longer than six months.

The jury’s job is to review the evidence presented in a trail and deliberating then coming to a conclusion about what the penalty for the accused should be.

Jury selection happens in two parts, random selection and “voir dire,” when attorneys question potential jurors to see if they are suitable to sit on that specific jury.

In the random selection process, the state or federal district chooses names randomly from lists including rosters of registered voters, people who hold driver’s licenses in the state, or people receiving unemployment benefits, for example, according to findlaw.com.

People who are randomly selected from one of these lists will receive a notice in the mail telling they will be expected to report to serve on a certain date.

“Voir Dire” is the process the court and the attorneys use to narrow down the pool of candidates to 12. Sometimes a judge will randomly excuse some people from duty if there are too many.

But usually, during the voir dire process, the judge and attorneys will interview each juror about their background and beliefs and look for reasons to object to jurors. The two types of objections include “peremptory challenges” and “challenges for cause.”

When an attorney challenges a juror for cause, it usually means there is something in the juror’s background that would prevent them from being objective about a case. In federal courts, each side has an unlimited number of challenges for cause, but each side only gets a limited number of peremptory challenges. Attorneys do not need to give reasons for peremptory challenges.