The Atlanta Journal Constitution has published one of the most misleading articles about officials and how they charge for their transcripts. The article has already spread nationwide in the court reporting field and particularly among officials. COCRA has learned that the Georgia Certified Court Reporters Association and NCRA are forming a response to this article shedding light and setting an accurate picture of why officials are paid separately for transcripts.

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

The New York Times recently published a three-part series of questions and answers in its “Taking Questions” column featuring federal court reporter Rebecca Forman on the Manhattan federal court.

Click here for part one.

Click here for part two.

Click here for part three.

A sample question and answer from the series.

Question.

Since becoming a court reporter in 2000 what are the major changes that you have seen in the field? Do you see court reporting phasing out or growing?

— Posted by Sharon

Answer:

The biggest change that I’ve experienced is the use of realtime. Realtime reporting is when lawyers and/or the judge get a realtime rough draft of the proceedings as I’m writing it on my steno machine.

When I was in court reporting school, the teachers mentioned realtime, but it wasn’t something that I thought I would ever be able to do. When I started working in federal court in 2003, realtime for the judges was required here.

Now almost all the judges get realtime feeds for trials, and more and more lawyers are asking for it as well. They like it because they are able to read the proceedings as they are occurring, annotate the testimony, highlight passages and search for key phrases.