A court reporter is a stenographer trained to create a verbatim record of legal and quasi-legal proceedings. The term court reporter is broadly applied to an individual who performs this function in a courtroom or in a pre-trial deposition setting. The court reporter is the unbiased officer of the court whose job it is to produce a complete, accurate and secure record. The court reporter’s end product is a transcript with an attached certificate which authenticates the transcript as a true and accurate record of the proceedings.


TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS

To become a court reporter, an individual may enroll in a National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) approved program or a college which grants a two- or four-year degree. Average time from enrollment to certification is variable because a portion of the speed-building skill becomes individualized and one works at one’s own pace. An average length of study for the entire court reporting program is three years. The curriculum includes classes on legal, medical and scientific terminology, language and grammar, stenotype theory, dictation and computer-aided transcription. An individual becomes proficient in the use of a stenotype machine to keystroke phonetic sounds into English.

In California, the court reporter becomes certified by a state licensing agency after passing a rigorous exam of knowledge and skill, and becomes a Certified Shorthand Reporter or CSR. Once certified a court reporter is free to report in courtroom and deposition proceedings as well as a variety of quasi-judicial, administrative, and grand jury proceedings. In court, the CSR is employed by a federal, state, or county judicial entity. In depositions or what is called the freelance field, the CSR is hired by a law firm, individual litigant, or governmental entity to work on a piecework basis.


METHODOLOGY

The court reporter’s mechanism to accomplish the task of recording the spoken word, sometimes reaching speeds of 300 words per minute, is the stenotype machine. The keyboard on a stenotype machine is designed so one can depress either one key or multiple keys simultaneously to record a word, a syllable, or an entire phrase. The keyboard is laid out as follows:

For example, by simultaneously depressing the K, A, and T keys, one has created the phonetic version of the word “cat.” The ring finger on the left hand depresses the “K” key, the left thumb depresses the “A,” and the little finger of the right hand depresses “T.” The court reporter’s computerized dictionary translates K-A-T into the English word “cat.” All the phonetic sounds in English need to be created using few keys, so arbitrary combinations of letters have been assigned phonetic sounds. Examine the following outlines in stenotype which translate in English to the sentence: “His name is Jack.”

H EU S	(His)     (EU together is a soft “i” sound.)
TPH AEU PL	(name) (TPH together is “N” and the “n” sound; AEU is long “a” sound; PL is the “m” sound.)
S	(is)  (S is “S” and a brief form for the word “is.”)
SKWR A BG	(Jack) (SKWR is the “j” sound; BG is the “k” sound.)

In concept, the fingers of the left hand control the initial consonant sounds of a word; the thumbs are used for both hard and soft vowel sounds, and the fingers of the right hand are used for final consonant sounds. There is a number bar above the top row of keys, and numbers are engaged by depressing the top-row key and the number bar at the same time. Hundreds of letter combinations are memorized by the court reporting student as “brief forms” to stand for the most commonly used words and phrases in the English language.


DUTIES OF A COURT REPORTER

The job of a court reporter can be described as having two major components. The first is to attend the legal proceeding and through the use of the stenotype machine and computer-aided transcription produce a verbatim account of the proceedings. After the proceeding concludes, the second function is producing a written transcript through editing stenotype into English, proofreading, and assembling the final product. It is estimated that for every hour one spends reporting proceedings, two hours of additional work is necessary to produce the end product, a certified transcript.


ONLINE RESOURCES

For more information on court reporting and court reporting training, visit the following sites:
www.ncraonline.org
www.stenograph.com