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Archive for February, 2020

Virginia Stenographers Maintain Courtroom Continuity

Posted on: February 24th, 2020 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

So You Want to be a Court ReporterThere are two certainties about court reporting. The work pays well, and there is a significant, ongoing need for those who excel at it. This is true in Virginia and across the country.

“Anybody who is a trained steno reporter could have a job tomorrow,” said Cynthia Bragg, a stenographer in both Virginia and Tennessee. “Not only is this a job with 100% placement, it’s also very portable.“I know many court reporters that are making over $100,000 a year. Some are making $50,000, which is still a good living.”

 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay is $57,150 a year, about $27.50 an hour, and the field will see a growth rate of 7% by 2028, a rapid increase for any occupation.

While that degree of security and compensation might be a comfort, the work is also demanding, multifaceted labor that’s often misunderstood.

 

What Do You Know About Court Reporters

Unless you’re a lawyer, judge, plaintiff or defendant, it’s likely the last time you saw a court reporter was in a movie or on TV.

In fiction, they sit over on a bench, hunched over what looks like an old adding machine, usually just waiting for a prosecutor to grab a spool of their text or to bark at them: “Read back what the accused just said!”

This is a false dramatization.

What they do is create painstaking word-for-word transcriptions of depositions, mediation meetings and trials, using digital stenotype machines, recording devices or a combination of technologies.

 

Virginia Court Reporters

The Virginia Court Reporters Association estimates that between 800 and 1,000 court reporters work in the state and, in general, they do not recite testimony for the court, incriminating or otherwise. Most of them are women, and many act as independent contractors.

The stenotype itself has just 22 character keys, representing the most-used consonants and vowels. They can be pressed in groups, like piano chords, to form other letters or words phonetically. The devices is also predictive and can draw from a database of hundreds of thousands of words.

While standard typing speed on a “Qwerty” keyboard is roughly 200 characters a minute, a trained stenographer can produce in excess of 200 words per minute.

If you need court reporting services from the best court reporting service, CourtScribes.com which supports all states and programs that aid in the court reporting world, and we are ready to serve you in your court reporting, videography services, interpreters, live-streaming, and video-to-text synchronization.

Although the majority of cities that offer CourtScribes’ services are in Florida, the company home base, other cities all across these United States that CourtScribes offers services in, are the following: Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, Fort Lauderdale, Cape Coral, Coral Springs, Clearwater, Palm Bay, Fort Myers, Weston, Sarasota, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Hialeah, Stuart, Hollywood, Naples, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Jupiter, Key West, Coral Gables, Maryland, Manhattan, Buffalo, Washington DC, Baltimore, Bowie, Virginia, Frederick, Albany, New York, Brooklyn,  Westchester, Gaithersberg, and Rockville.

Court Reporters Compete For the Fastest Fingers in NYC

Posted on: February 17th, 2020 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

We at Courtscribes.com always find that when there are competitions to show off the amazing skills that court reporters possess, we will always post it. A group of 15 nimble-fingered students from Plaza College in Queens, NYC, will put their court reporting skills to the test in a competition this evening.

Over 100 students from across the city will compete in the National Court Reporters Association Student Speed Contest.

Plaza College’s court reporting program is led by Karen Santucci, and prepares students for careers in the court and beyond. As you know, stenography training leads to jobs in captioning for broadcast and live events.

As part of National Court Reporting and Captioning Week, the event highlights the importance of both speed and accuracy in the field. Students will be given five minutes of Disney-themed dictation. Their transcription will need to be 96 percent accurate to notch a victory.

The event will take place at Plaza College.

If you need court reporting services from the best court reporting service, CourtScribes.com which supports all states and programs that aid in the court reporting world, and we are ready to serve you in your court reporting, videography services, interpreters, live-streaming, and video-to-text synchronization.

Although the majority of cities that offer CourtScribes’ services are in Florida, the company home base, other cities all across these United States that CourtScribes offers services in, are the following: Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, Fort Lauderdale, Cape Coral, Coral Springs, Clearwater, Palm Bay, Fort Myers, Weston, Sarasota, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Hialeah, Stuart, Hollywood, Naples, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Jupiter, Key West, Coral Gables, Maryland, Manhattan, Buffalo, Washington DC, Baltimore, Bowie, Virginia, Frederick, Albany, New York, Brooklyn,  Westchester, Gaithersberg, and Rockville.

Arkansas Station KARK to Highlight Court Reporter Shortages

Posted on: February 10th, 2020 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

As we have detailed over and over again, courtrooms across the nation are dealing with a shortage of court reporters. The National Court Reporter Association estimates a shortage of 5,000 court reporters throughout the United States again this year.

A lack of court reporters can prompt some courts to delay legal proceedings and ask other reporters to work extra shifts. This is becoming a problem in the state of Arkansas as well now.

In Arkansas, the salary for a court reporter is about $45,000-$50,000. Some earn more than $100,000, depending on their experience. The bottom line is that the pay is very competitive, but there is just not enough interest being generated.

NBC affiliate in Arkansas KARK will have reporter ReChelle Turner in the courtroom to speak to two different court reporters about their careers and the future of the profession.

On the KARK News at 10, Turner explains the different methods you can learn to be a court reporter, the skills you need, and why there is a shortage of court reporters in the natural state and the country.

This can only help the shortages. Let’s hope that in some way it does just that.

If you need court reporting services from the best court reporting service, CourtScribes.com which supports all states and programs that aid in the court reporting world, and we are ready to serve you in your court reporting, videography services, interpreters, live-streaming, and video-to-text synchronization.

Although the majority of cities that offer CourtScribes’ services are in Florida, the company home base, other cities all across these United States that CourtScribes offers services in, are the following: Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, Fort Lauderdale, Cape Coral, Coral Springs, Clearwater, Palm Bay, Fort Myers, Weston, Sarasota, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Hialeah, Stuart, Hollywood, Naples, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Jupiter, Key West, Coral Gables, Maryland, Manhattan, Buffalo, Washington DC, Baltimore, Bowie, Virginia, Frederick, Albany, New York, Brooklyn,  Westchester, Gaithersberg, and Rockville.

 

Texas is Another State Hit With Court Reporter Shortages

Posted on: February 3rd, 2020 by Dependable Website Management No Comments

Court reporters

As you know from reading the blogs on this site, the country is rapidly running low on court reporters. You can now add Texas to the list of states that is really beginning to feel the crunch,

On Dec. 31, Judge Chris Day, of the 2nd Judicial District Court, in Cherokee County, Texas, sent a formal request to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton inquiring about the possibility of implementing a court recording system in face of “an increased shortage of court reporters.”

 

Shocking Statistics

In 2014, there were about 32,000 court reporters in the U.S. Texas had the second-biggest shortage in the country. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the country has half that many court reporters today!

The good news is that becoming a court reporter only requires one to have a high school diploma or equivalent, and pass a state certification exam as well as a state and federal background check. Include court reporting school and a stenograph and it should only set one back $25,000.

Many students fail their certification tests on their third or fourth try as the program dwindled but in the last three years there has been a change in enrollment, a new spark in the profession, and the word is getting out that the legal profession needs court reporters, badly.

And the shortage has one major side effect that may have been overlooked: Court reporters make bank. In 2014, a six-figure court reporter job opened up in San Francisco, and while that’s still on the high end, median wages were approaching $60,000 a year in 2018.

 

What About Court Recorders

Isn’t the issue as simple as putting microphones on judges, prosecutors and plaintiffs? Well, not really.

Not only would the cost of implementing a recording system, as well as hiring human technicians to maintain and operate the equipment, likely reach as high as $400,000 after also factoring in storage and archiving costs, but court recorders are far less accurate. And there lies the biggest problem.

Court recording machines do not seem to be the answer. They have been tried and they are very difficult to transcribe with accuracy. They may be OK for municipal court but they are always extremely difficult and time-consuming.

Anyone who has ever struggled to understand a teacher with a thick accent or a police officer with a particularly distinct regional dialect can probably understand why simply recording someone’s voice might not be adequate for creating an accurate transcription.

So if you’re sick of your job or just ready for a career change and you live in Texas, now is the time. You should really think about becoming a court reporter. Because without court reporters to produce an accurate record of court proceedings, then chaos, injustice, and most gruesome court delays are likely to be the inevitable outcome. And nobody wants any of that.

If you need court reporting services from the best court reporting service, CourtScribes.com which supports all states and programs that aid in the court reporting world, and we are ready to serve you in your court reporting, videography services, interpreters, live-streaming, and video-to-text synchronization.

Although the majority of cities that offer CourtScribes’ services are in Florida, the company home base, other cities all across these United States that CourtScribes offers services in, are the following: Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, Fort Lauderdale, Cape Coral, Coral Springs, Clearwater, Palm Bay, Fort Myers, Weston, Sarasota, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Hialeah, Stuart, Hollywood, Naples, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Jupiter, Key West, Coral Gables, Maryland, Manhattan, Buffalo, Washington DC, Baltimore, Bowie, Virginia, Frederick, Albany, New York, Brooklyn,  Westchester, Gaithersberg, and Rockville.