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Posted on March 13th, 2012 by admin
COCRA received word last week that the remaining official reporters in the Alameda County Superior Court unaffected by layoffs were sent an email from Pat Sweeten, Court Executive Officer, informing them that as of April 1st, Alameda County Superior Court would implement a word count procedure and would no longer follow “the long-established standard that there are 2.5 folios per page, or $2.13 per page for an original transcript.”
The letter goes on to explain the new word count procedure:
The Court will discontinue use of the folio standard to charge parties and the Court for transcripts. Instead, effective April 2, 2012, the Court’s new method for calculating the amount court reporters may charge for transcripts will be the “word count” method which is consistent with the requirements of Government Code section 69950. As part of transcript preparation, each reporter must include the number of words contained in the transcript on the reporter certification page.
This method will be used for all transcripts requested by any party or the Court and for all case types, including criminal, civil, family law, juvenile and probate. Transcripts requested or ordered prior to April 2, 2012 will be processed and paid according to the “folio” rate currently in use.
For those of you who are unaware, Marin County was the first county to implement the Word Count procedure for calculating payment for transcripts. It is COCRA’s understanding that Napa County Superior Court and Imperial County Superior Court may also be following in the steps of Marin and Alameda. Santa Cruz had tried to follow in Marin’s steps but SEIU, the union representing the official reporters in that county, filed a grieveance against Santa Cruz Superior Court and the issue is now in the process of being heard before the Public Employment Relations Board. SEIU also represents the official reporters in Alameda and it is COCRA’s understanding that the official reporters there are in consultation with SEIU.
Of particular note for freelance reporters who have begun to work in civil courts formerly staffed by official reporters is that Alameda Superior Court is including civil transcripts in the word count procedure, although they give no instructions or hint on how they will get freelance reporters to follow the word count procedure.
Posted on March 10th, 2012 by admin
BACKGROUND
When the legislature enacted Government Code 68086 et seq. to permit trial courts to collect a service fee for the use of official court reporters in civil cases, this fee was intended to provide the courts with a funding incentive to use official court reporters in civil proceedings.
However, defects in these statutes function currently as a disincentive to the courts and are contravening the legislature’s original intention of encouraging the use of official court reporters in civil cases.
PROBLEM
- Fees are not being used for the service for which they are collected.
- Fees are not adequately structured to offset the cost of the service.
- Loophole is severing the public court record from the public and the courts.
HARM TO THE PUBLIC, THE COURTS AND THE RECORD
1. Underserving the Public
- Litigants are forced to retain their own court reporting services, which places indigent/self-represented litigants at a disadvantage.
- Litigants are paying court reporter fees at the time of filing and then do not receive the court reporter services they’ve paid for.
2. Funding Disincentive to the Courts
- The trial courts cannot retain the fees they collect to offset the cost of the service.
- Loss of fees puts undue pressure on local court budgets.
- Fees are being subsumed by reductions in budget allocations.
- Fees are universally structured in a manner which is not flexible enough to locally cover the cost of providing the service in each trial court.
- Courts are abandoning their responsibility to safeguard the public record through a loophole in the statute which allows for the outsourcing of court reporting services.
3. Severing Access to the Public Record
- Outsourced court reporters are not accountable and/or accessible to the trial courts or the public, either during or after the proceedings.
- Outsourced court reporters are unfamiliar with court procedures, including the safeguarding of private and confidential information, and archiving the record.
- Outsourced court reporters are more expensive and present all the same disadvantages for both non-profit and government agency litigants too.
STATUTORY FIX:
- Ensure litigants get what they pay for.
- Permit courts to retain the fees they collect for the services they provide.
- Ensure collection of fees sufficient to offset the cost of the service.
- Permit the courts to regain control of the public record through the employment of official court reporters.
COCRA, along with its legislative advocate, Shane Gusman, is working with other court reporter associations and unions representing official reporters in crafting legislative solutions that will correct the defects in the court reporter fee statutes, and return official reporters to the civil courts.
Posted on February 1st, 2012 by admin
In a stunning defeat for California Supreme Court Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the California Judicial Council, and the AOC, the State Assembly voted 41 to 23 to pass AB 1208, a bill that would restore local trial court control over individual court budgets.
The chief justice and her supporters had been lobbying and rallying against the bill claiming that passage of the bill would be a detriment to smaller court systems and that the legislature was interfering in the management decisions of another branch of government.
Supporters of the bill, which include the Alliance of California Judges, unions, and state court employees, claimed that AB 1208 was necessary in order to assert more local control over the financial decisions of the Judicial Council. Bill supporters also decried financial decisions of the JC that have led, for example, to funding millions of dollars for the much derided CCMS court software program while trial courts have laid off hundreds of workers.
Although the AB 1208 supporters may be cheering the vote by the Assembly, they know full well that the battle is not over. The bill will now make its way to the Senate for a process that will be most certainly heated and vocal from both sides. In a prepared statement, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye signaled she was ready for the next phase of the battle. “People who know the facts know that this is no victory for Californians, for our state courts or for equal access to justice.”
Your COCRA team has been monitoring AB 1208 with the help of its Legislative Advisor Shane Gusman. We will keep COCRA members apprised of any new developments as the bill enters the Senate.
Posted on November 4th, 2011 by admin
In our continued efforts to promote those officials who have been laid off, COCRA has entered into a three-month advertising contract with the Bar Association of San Francisco. COCRA now has a sponsored hyperlink on their Northern California Register of Experts and Consultants.
The screenshot below is of COCRA’s sponsored link. You may view the live link by clicking here which will take you to the BASF website.
Keep in mind that COCRA’s link will pop up on the majority of the pages on BASF’s register. It is COCRA’s hope that this will draw the attention of attorneys who have matters in civil courts towards the officials listed on COCRA’s Registry of Officials.
You may view the Registry by clicking here.
Posted on October 28th, 2011 by admin
Stanislaus County pulled all its Official Reporters out of civil courts, years ago, only to recognize that mistake and return to the staffing of civil courts with official reporters. Yet again, it’s their plan to pull reporters from civil courts as an answer to budget shortfalls. Santa Cruz made that same change last year. In Napa, Marin and Alameda civil courts, official court reporters are disappearing at alarming rates. Ventura and LA are being warned of coming layoffs. Other courts have intimated this might also be a solution to their budget woes. Last Monday, San Francisco Superior Court jettisoned all its official court reporters that cover the civil courts.
What’s going on? The answer is not simple.
The California Legislature provides public funding for official court reporters in court matters most intrinsic to an orderly and safe society: criminal, civil conservancy, family and juvenile. Back in 1992, the California Legislature, recognizing the efficiencies derived from using in-house court reporters, enacted a user fee system to encourage the courts also to provide official court reporters in all other matters [not covered by GC69952], including civil. The user fee system was designed to offset the costs of the service provided to the litigants who pay the fee and to guarantee accessibility and availability of a verbatim record.
However, over the past 20 years, the user fee system has become a political football in the battle of the state budget. Over the years, it’s been diluted to a point where there is little evidence that it does anything to directly offset the costs to each trial court for the reporting service provided. It’s actually becoming an excuse for local courts to put the onus on the litigants with money and a lawyer to privately retain and drag a CSR into court. More problems flow from there, not the least of which is the increasingly imbalanced access to justice between litigants of means and litigants without means. This growing mess is not what the Legislature intended, and it’s certainly not consistent with the mission of the courts.
COCRA is inviting other stakeholders to participate in our efforts to fix this broken fee structure and to stop the privatization of the official reporters’ jobs. Follow our progress and check back with us here on our website for updates and information on how you can help.
Posted on October 7th, 2011 by admin
As many of you know, there has been a trend in various superior courts throughout the state to remove official court reporters from civil courts.
Aside from the negative effects to the public and the judicial system, this has resulted in the layoff of many officials.
The California Official Court Reporters Assn. would like to help. COCRA is in the process of developing a separate page on our website which will contain a registry of those officials who have been recently laid off. This registry will contain the names and contact info for those officials. It is our intent to begin advertising that page in various legal outlets to promote the experience and expertise that these officials bring to counsels seeking a reporter for a civil proceeding.
If you would like to add your name to our registry, please contact us by clicking here. We will send you a brief form to fill out that will give us information that we need to post to the registry. It is COCRA’s hope to focus as much attention as we can to all of you who have been or may get laid off.
Please be sure to visit our site often for updates, or to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
Posted on October 1st, 2011 by admin
And so ends another successful COCRA Fall Seminar. COCRA thanks all of you who spent the day with us in San Francisco. We know that in these times of economic uncertainty every dollar counts. The fact you choose to spend your money by becoming COCRA members and registering for our seminars shows how much you believe in us, and your profession. We truly appreciate your support.
We drew names in our early registration drawing today and we are pleased as punch to announce the following winners.
First Prize/iPod Touch
Janet Pond
Second Prize/iPod Nano
Christine Jones
Third Prize/iPod Shuffle
Jennifer Burnett
Fourth Prize/ Free Seminar Registration
Renee’ Smith
Congratulations to our winners! We hope to see you all again at our 2012 Spring Seminar in San Francisco.
Posted on September 11th, 2011 by admin
If you’ve been to a COCRA seminar then it’s more than likely you’ve attended a session led by grammarian extraordinaire Margie Wakeman Wells. Her sessions on punctuation for court reporter professionals are incredibly popular and receive some of the best, if not the best, seminar ratings from COCRA attendees.
Margie has created a website for those court reporters who, “care about grammar and punctuation, because you want to learn more, because you love a lively debate about where to put that comma or what that number form should be!”
COCRA highly encourages officials to check out Margie’s reference guide Court Reporting: Bad Grammar/Good Punctuation. The book is a blessing for officials who struggle on a daily basis to correctly punctuate “attorney speak.”
The description of the book below is taken from Margie’s own website.
Court Reporting: Bad Grammar/Good Punctuation is the story of punctuation. Read in its entirety along with the exercises that parallel it in the Workbook, this is an advanced course in punctuation for the court reporter, the court reporting instructor, the court reporting student, or anyone who wants to truly understand punctuation.
It is the definitive text on the rules for punctuation; a discussion/explanation of the rules; and the thing that sets it apart from other texts on punctuation is that it includes those special things we need to know about applying the rules to the court reporting transcript.
For those interested in purchasing a copy of this great book, please click here.
Posted on September 11th, 2011 by admin
COCRA received the following message from the California Deposition Reporters Association regarding changes to the California Certificate in Realtime Reporting (CCRR) exam. DRA is the association that is the group that facilitates the CCRR.
Immediately following the annual DRA convention in Monterey in February 2012, the CCRR exam will be increased from 180 to 200 words per minute, in accordance with the recent change in the national realtime exam, and in order to keep abreast with the increased challenges facing realtime reporters in today’s age.
There are only two opportunities left this year to take the CCRR at 180 wpm. The first is September 24th in San Diego at DRA’s Fall Seminar, and your second and last chance in 2011 is at COCRA’s own Fall Seminar. Reporters will get one more chance to take the CCRR at 180 in February, 2012, at DRA’s annual convention in Monterey.
To register for the CCRR click here.
And don’t forget that the CCRR will also be hosted at COCRA’s Fall Seminar in San Francisco, October 1st.
Posted on September 1st, 2011 by admin
The California Official Court Reporters Association (COCRA) recently went through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process to identify a new association management company. After extensive review of the submissions and interviews of the top candidates, COCRA has awarded the contract to Smith Moore & Associates.
Smith Moore & Associates
Smith Moore & Associates is a full-service association management firm located in downtown Sacramento, California, within walking distance of the State Capitol. Since its inception in 2006, Smith Moore & Associates has grown from one client to 15 clients; and from two staff members to 15 employees. The vision of Smith Moore & Associates is simple: to be the premier association management company on the West Coast.
To achieve this vision, Smith Moore & Associates and its principal are dedicated to a singular focus of association management. Smith Moore & Associates focuses on the administration and strategic management of its clients, while working jointly with each client’s legislative advocates and associated counsel.
Smith Moore & Associates provides high-quality management services that are tailored to the specific needs of its clients. This approach ensures that the volunteer leadership can focus on the vision of the organization, while being confident the day-to-day operations are implemented effectively and efficiently.
Melissa Dixon
Account Manager
Melissa Dixon, CAE,is the Director of Operations and an Account Manager at Smith Moore & Associates. Melissa has fourteen years of experience in administrative and management services to trade associations. Melissa also manages California Association of Business Brokers (CABB), the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers (CACEO), the California Official Court Reporters Association (COCRA), the California Society for Municipal Finance Officers (CSMFO), the Fire Districts Association of California Employment Benefits Authority (FDAC EBA), the Mosquito Research Foundation (MRF), the Sacramento Valley Association of Building Officials (SVABO), and Springbrook National User Group (SNUG).
Melissa specializes in database management, budget development, meeting/event planning, human resources, and writing and editing publications. She works closely with the boards and committees of her clients in the development of governance documents, bylaws, policies, procedures, and credentialing and accreditation programs.
Melissa graduated from California State University, Sacramento, where she received a bachelor’s degree in English and earned from Walden University her MBA with a concentration in non-profit administration. Melissa received the prestigious Certified Association Executive (CAE) designation from the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in 2010.
Posted in: Court Budgets, Word Count
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