This story out of Champaign, Illinois as many there believe that court reporting is a dying industry. But court reporters are saying that it’s quite the opposite, as they’re in seriously high demand right now. And we have many blog posts supporting this right here at CourtScribes.
The profession of court reporting has been seeing a decline for the past few decades.
“When I first started working 20 years ago, as far as active reporter licenses, (there were) 3,000 (people), and now we are looking at 1,700 active and 500 of those work for the state already,” said court reporter Melissa Clagg.
Many misinformed people believe that in order to be a court reporter, one needs to have a college degree, but that’s far from the truth.
“It’s basically a vocational profession. You don’t need a four-year degree,” said Clagg.
With the shortage can come a price. There could be slowdowns in the court system waiting for a record of proceedings.
The average age of court reporter(s) is 52 years old. They are getting ready or preparing for retirement. The average age of court reporters in Illinois is 52 years old, which means many are eligible for retirement.
In this case, take the Champaign Courthouse. They have seven court reporters and three of those are eligible for retirement.
“They can decide to retire at any time and we don’t have anyone to fill their shoes,” said Clagg.
So Tammy Bumgarner came up with First Steps. It’s an introductory course to teach people about court reporting and how to get a license. It is a great “step” to getting people informed and interested.
One of those courses will be held at the Champaign Public Library on both Wednesday and Saturday for 4 weeks. They have about 20 locations all over the state.
CourtScribes.com supports all states and programs that aid in the court reporting world, and we too are ready to serve you in your court reporting, videography services, interpreters, live-streaming, and video-to-text synchronization.
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