Yesterday, May 29th, 2008, Linda Rapattoni of the Daily Journal reports the following:

“In a more controversial move, it [Senate Budget Subcommittee] also approved giving courts the authority to expand electronic reporting to all proceedings in family, probate and mental health courts as well as in law and motion proceedings. It is now used only in limited civil matters.
“Lobbyists for the roughly 8,000 court reporters in the state have fought off such moves since electronic reporting was introduced as an experiment in the mid-1980s. They say occasional equipment failures make electronic reporting unreliable and it actually requires more personnel, offsetting any potential savings.
“Legislative staff concluded that while it wouldn’t produce significant savings for the state, it would save litigants money because a recording costs between $10 and $20, while a written transcript often costs $300 or more.
“Michelle Castro, a lobbyist for the California State Council of Service Employees, which represents court reporters, said she did not think the proposal has much of a chance.
“‘There’s not big momentum for it, at least I’m hoping there isn’t,’ Castro said.”

The Senate Subcommittee #4 has recommended budget trailer bill language to implement these changes.

What is a court reporter to do? Stay strong, stay informed, and, above all, continue to provide access to justice for everyone in the cost-effective and accurate way you always do.

Remember the days when you had to attend an NCRA business meeting in order to have your vote count? Those days are gone, my friends! NCRA listened and responded by granting all NCRA members the ability to vote on national issues.

Why, you say, is COCRA so excited about direct member voting? Because it gives all NCRA members a voice without having to fly, drive, train, bike, walk, or crawl to the next business meeting to be heard.

The next NCRA business meeting will take place in Anaheim on July 24, 2008. If you can’t make it to the NCRA annual conference, make you voice heard by direct vote.

The following links will give you information about direct member voting and about our friends at DRA and their proposal to amend the NCRA bylaws to include associations based on population, not state.

If you are going to be in Anaheim, stop by the COCRA booth and say hello!

Link to NCRA’s FAQs about Direct Member Voting: (Copy and paste the link below)

http://ncraonline.org/NewsInfo/KeyIssues/DMV/

Link to DRA’s Proposed Amendment to the NCRA Bylaws: (Copy and paste the link below)

http://web2.customwebexpress.com/dranew/sub/ncrabylawsamendment.jsp

The CR Board is proposing to change fees for the CSR exam.  Title 16, California Code of Regulations, Section 2450, currently sets the fee for an examination at $75 for each separate part for each administration.  They propose to change it to set the fee for filing an application to $40 for each administration.

They are also proposing to amend the section to incorporate for the current fees that they are already charging for initial certificate, $100; renewal remains at $100; delinquency fee for renewal, $50; duplicate certificate, $5; and reduces the penalty fee for failure to notify Board of a change of name or address from $50 to $20.

CCR Section 2451 pertains to due dates of fees.  They propose to add a new subsection to establish the due date of the delinquency fee for certificate renewal if the certificate is not renewed within 30 days after the date that it expired.

The hearing date is June 3, 2008, at 1:00 p.m.  If you would like to comment, you can do so orally at the hearing or submit your written statement to the Board before June 3, 2008.  For further information regarding these changes, please go to the CR Board website at www.courtreportersboard.ca.gov.

With fuel prices at $4 and above, and just the general cost of living skyrocketing, it’s nice that the CR Board’s rates are not rising and that applicant’s for the CSR exam are actually going to be paying less!  Now if we could only get an increase in transcript rates!

Let us know what you think!

If you don’t have time to watch this,

read this! And thanks for taking the time out of your day to check out our site! We have up-to-date information on so many topics of interest to court reporters. It is exciting to see so much enthusiasm…yes, I dare to say it … enthusiasm … for our profession at a time when those, shall we say, less-informed members of our community are trying to make electronic recording today’s way of preserving access to justice!

The Legislative Analyst’s Office’s suggestion of reducing California’s official court reporting workforce by 20 percent per year did not make it into the May revise of the Governor’s proposed budget. Kudos to all reporters throughout the State of California whose efforts show that together we are a strong and intelligent group of professionals committed to providing the best service to the roughly 34 million people served in our courtrooms every year.

We will not sit back and feel sorry for ourselves because others don’t understand the skill level involved in maintaining the certified shorthand reporter license in California.
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Well, on top of the already stressful job of maintaining the record, you can now add crime fighting duties to the job description at least for one court reporter in federal court in the state of New York. Ron Tolkin was preparing to report the sentencing of one Victor Wright, a drug dealer who was about to be sentenced to two life sentences for drug trafficking, when the defendant lunged for the prosecutor in the case.

Here’s how the events went down according to the New York Post.

He was going to slash her throat,” said defense lawyer Harry Batchelder, who, along with a court reporter and two marshals, slammed Victor Wright, 27, to the ground and grabbed an inch-long razor blade from him.

Wright was being led into the courtroom to be hit with two life sentences for his role in a ruthless drug-trafficking crew when he lunged at prosecutor Carolyn Pokorny, 38, grabbing her by the throat and pulling her to the ground as she screamed in terror.

“He came into the courtroom to attack her,” said Eugene Corcoran, head of the Marshals Service in Brooklyn.

As if that weren’t dramatic enough, the New York Post has a quote of Mr. Tolkin issuing a challenge to the defendant.

“Why don’t you try me instead of her?” stenographer Ron Tolkin shouted at the cowardly criminal as he leaped on Wright, before the group fell to the ground in a heap.

As for the defendant, he will probably face new charges for his cowardly act and will now be known for getting his ass kicked by his own defense attorney and the court reporter who not only happen to be Vietnam veterans but who are also considerably older than the defendant. Harry Batchelder, the defense attorney, is 72 and Ron Tolkin, the court reporter, is 60.

“Thank God Harry and Ron were there,” said Judge Frederic Block’s courtroom deputy, Mike Innelli

It’s been about a month now since COCRA held its annual conference in San Francisco April 19th. In case you missed the chance to join us, we had our conference at the downtown campus of San Francisco State University. And in case you think the location sounded kind of drab, you would be wrong. Did I mention the campus is located in the San Francisco Center which houses shops and restaurants such as Bloomingdales and Nordstroms? Needless to say those who did attend this year’s conference had a great time hitting the shops and restaurants during the lunch hour and post-conference.

And if you were one of the lucky few who had the chance to make it this year, COCRA would love to hear from you. I’ve just uploaded a new survey that’s a little more detailed than the one participants filled out at the conference. COCRA is pushing hard to be your go-to association for continuing education. And to help us fulfill that goal we need those of you who attended this year’s conference to tell us how well we did or didn’t do. Any particular topic you liked or disliked? Was there a topic we should have covered? COCRA wants to hear from you.

So take time out from working on those transcripts and fill out this survey that shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to complete.

COCRA’s Annual Conference Survey

It would appear that last week’s ruling by the appellate court in the second district that basically said that a trial court had the authority to determine what constituted “reasonable fees” when it came to the expedite fees for deposition transcripts has hit a nerve. Members of the Deposition Reporters Association of California (DRA) have been sending questions and inquiries to the association in regards to the ruling.

In response DRA sent out an email to assure members that the ruling pertained to a narrow issue and that Coast Court Reporters, the depo firm involved in the ruling, was moving to have the matter reheard. Here is a portion taken from the email.

DRA just learned from Coast Court Reporters’ attorney that they will be filing a Petition for Rehearing later this week with the intention to correct certain factual errors they find in the Court’s decision and what they see as misstatements and/or misapplications of the cited laws. They have not yet decided on a course of action with respect to a Petition to the Supreme Court for review of the Appellate Court’s decision but will be doing so later this month.

If this case is taken up on appeal, it’s possible that this decision may be reversed or modified in some way, but in the meantime, the appellate decision says that the Court’s intervention to determine the “reasonableness” of the reporter’s fees would not be necessary when there is an agreement “between interested parties,” so reporters and reporting firms would be well advised, if at all possible, to obtain an agreement with the copy attorneys via email, or in other written form, to pay the exact charges quoted prior to providing transcript copies and other related services.

DRA’s advice to its membership, which consists mainly of depo reporters, is to detail and list everything that you’re going to charge for and get the parties to sign off on the written agreement before transcript preparation. This is a bit of advice that officials working in civil court would do well to heed especially when it comes to fees for providing services such as expedited transcripts, realtime hookup, etc.