From the Miami Herald.

For two decades, Miami-Dade criminal court stenographer Vanester Collier has dutifully recorded and transcribed everything from the mundane arraignment hearing to the televised murder trial.

But now Collier is refusing to transcribe the trial of a Miami man convicted of murder because state administrators, armed with a little-noticed rate change passed by lawmakers, have cut her pay for the work by nearly 30 percent.

Click here to read more.

From an article in the New Mexico Business Weekly.

The court reporting business is booming, thanks to federal laws that require closed captioning of TV shows and, now, captioning of all shows that TV stations stream on the Internet.

“A cottage profession has grown up over broadcast captioning. That area has opened up a great host of opportunities for those who enter the profession,” says Jim Cudahy, spokesman for the Washington, D.C. area-based National Court Reporters Association, a trade organization that counts as members 21,000 of the nation’s 50,000 to 60,000 court reporters.

“Court reporters themselves are pioneers with regard to bringing technology into the courtroom and other settings, and every day they are finding new applications for taking speech and turning it into words on paper or in an electronic file.”

Click here to continue reading.

From the New York Law Journal.

The Unified Court System will be introducing electronic recording devices into the New York City Criminal Court as a response to the number of court reporters taking early retirement and the challenge of replacing them, Judge Lawrence Marks, the system’s director of operations, confirmed yesterday.

About 70 court reporters, most of them in Supreme Court, have taken early retirement, Judge Marks said. The Supreme Court reporter vacancies will be filled from several sources, but a significant number will come through the promotion of reporters assigned to Criminal Court, he said.

The net result is that the Criminal Court will be short about 15 court reporters when all of the early retirees exit, as they are required to do, on Nov. 23.

Click here to continue reading.

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.

Yahoo has compiled a list for an article titled “Training Times for Top Jobs” and the court reporting profession has made the list.  The average annual salary they have listed for a court reporter is $49,710 with an average completion time of 2 years.   You can view the entire list to see what other proffessions make the list by clicking here.

ALOYSIUS v. MARK KISLINGBURY AND STENOMASTER, INC.

JENIFFER ALOYSIUS, Appellant,
v.
MARK KISLINGBURY AND STENOMASTER, INC., Appellees.

No. 01-09-00365-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas, First District, Houston.

Opinion issued March 18, 2010.

Panel consists of Justices JENNINGS, HANKS and BLAND.

Appellant, Jeniffer Aloysius (“Aloysius”) appeals the trial court’s denial of her special appearance. Aloysius complains that the trial court erred because she lacks the necessary minimum contacts with Texas to establish its jurisdiction over her. Aloysius also complains that the trial court erred by failing to dismiss this suit because Appellee, StenoMaster, Inc. (“StenoMaster”) lacks capacity to bring suit, Texas is an inconvenient forum in which to litigate this case, the parties are engaged in an ongoing discovery dispute, the petition fails to state a claim against her, and StenoMaster and Appellee Mark Kislingbury (“Kislingbury”) have engaged in sanctionable conduct. We affirm.

Click here to read entire ruling.

UPDATE 3-17-10: Please click on the comments section to read the comments posted by Brandy Carrier who is currently an official in Marin County Superior Court.

——————————–

After issuing layoffs last month for court staff which included four official reporters, Marin Superior Court administration struck out again against officials when it sent a letter to the remaining officials informing them that as of March 15th, 2010, they would no longer be directly assigned to a judge as has been the past custom and practice.

Instead, the new letter informed the officials they would all be separated from their judges and assigned to a new pool of reporters.

The following is taken from the letter by Marin County Executive Director Kim Turner to the officials in Marin Superior explaining the court’s reasoning for putting officials into a pool system.

On March 15, 2010, the Court will implement a pooling system for the assignment of court reporters. Pooling has been proven to be a cost effective way to manage court reporting resources and to contain costs. While this will be a significant change for the Court and for all reporters, it is, without question, an effective fiscal strategy, given our recent budget constraints. Many courts that have changed from direct assignment to pooling have seen significant cost savings and have been better able to ensure that all reporters have the opportunity for transcript work and varied assignments.

Additionally, the Marin Superior Court administration encourages attorneys and parties to hire a freelance reporter in court proceedings for which a staff official reporter is not available due to their reassignment under the new system. Many courtrooms will not be staffed by officials at all.

We want officials to know that Marin Superior may not be acting out of a vacuum, as COCRA has been aware for some time now that various superior court administrators and personnel have been consulting each other asking about what courts are not mandated by law to be staffed.

It is our understanding that SEIU is currently working on responding to the recent decision to lay off officials and the court’s decision to pool its officials. We will keep you apprised of any further updates.

If you would like to read the letter that Marin County Executive Director Kim Turner sent to the officials announcing the pooling system, you may do so by clicking here to download the document or click on “Read the rest of this entry” link below to read the text of the letter embedded in this blog post.

(more…)

ATLANTA – It was five years ago Thursday that Brian Nichols opened fire in the Fulton County courthouse, touching off a bloody rampage that ended with the deaths of four people.

It was on that day that rape suspect Brian Nichols overpowered a sheriff’s deputy — grabbed her gun, shooting and killing Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julia Brandau and Sergeant Hoyt Teasley at the courthouse and immigration agent David Wilhelm as he fled.

Nichols was captured in Gwinnett County a day later and convicted of his crimes and sentenced to life in jail.

Five years later portraits of the three people killed in the courthouse hang in the lobby. Thursday, those paintings were joined by another tribute.

Click here to continue reading.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. — A group of homeowners in one Colorado Springs neighborhood is upset with El Paso County’s court system after a recording device inside the courthouse failed to capture a trial, forcing the homeowners to reconstruct it more than a year later.

Cherry Creek Springs’ Homeowners Association originally filed a lawsuit in July 2007 against eight of their homeowners over budget issues.

The two parties went to trial in the fall of 2008 in front of Judge Thomas Kane who, after four days, sided in favor of the defendants.

Soon after his decision, the HOA decided to file and appeal.

But, when the courts went back for the transcripts from the trial, none could be found.

Click here to continue reading.