Miami court reporters Courtscribes bring technology to the table.
The national court reporter shortage has reared its head in Florida, as Broward County wrestles with fallout from too-few qualified people.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that administrators in Broward County are being urged to boost the attractiveness of the profession before the shortage affects felony cases. According to the newspaper:
Court reporters in Broward are paid $100 for a morning of work and $100 for an afternoon in the felony division. On the civil side, they are not mandatory. When they are hired, they are not paid with taxpayer money.
Private lawyers are charged — $250 each for the morning and afternoon session.
Broward is just one of many places that finds itself facing a shortage of qualified court reporters, as we noted here.
According to Ducker Worldwide: “Increased legal activity and new opportunities will drive demand despite the steady transition of some courts to digital recording. Decreased enrollment and graduation rates for court reporters, combined with significant retirement rates, will create by 2018 a critical shortfall projected to represent nearly 5,500 court reporting positions.”
Ducker Worldwide predicts there will still be a strong market for courtroom stenography in the years to come.
CourtScribes is a pioneer in using technology to help enhance court reporting.
Entrepreneur and professor Barry Unger, in a white paper, writes that the court reporting agency is leading a wave of change to disrupt the centuries-old profession.
Unger writes: “CourtScribes is changing the court reporting industry by using Internet age technology to create the official record of court proceedings, using remote transcriptionists and charging attorneys up to 50% less than what they now pay, and as … a disruptive technology will not only improve the quality of services, but also ultimately extend and even democratize the use of services that are today often restricted only to high profile or high dollar value cases.”
