Court reports are an exciting field! From courtroom to deposition room to television broadcast, court reporters, deposition reporters, and subtitlers make it possible! Court reports are the way to start a career that is crucial to the legal field, challenging and well paid. Literally global job opportunities await you.
There is no question that court reports provide a needed service in the legal community. But did you know that court reporting services also provide access to communications for the hearing impaired? Think about it … people with hearing loss can now access the world through the unique skills of a court reporter. You can be an independent contractor receiving a 1099 at the end of the tax year, working as a county clerk for a courtroom, or even starting your own court reporting firm. With court reports, the chances of getting the job you’ve always wanted have never been greater.
Court reporting professionals are a part of exciting court trials and make history, word for word. They report high-profile trials and even caption presidential inaugurations!
Facts about court reports:
1. Court reporting professionals earn an average of $ 60,000 or more per year. (Including broadcast captioners and deposition reporters.)
2. Subtitling of television programs (live) is done by highly specialized court reporters called “broadcast subtitlers.” US federal law requires the captioning of literally hundreds of hours of television programming (live) each week, creating abundant career opportunities for individuals with these skills.
3. Many court reporting professionals use a captioning method to offer individualized services for the deaf or hard of hearing through Communication Access Realtime Translation. CART reporters go with deaf clients to college classes to instantly translate speech into written words. The demand for this type of skill is so high that the court reporting companies that provide this type of service cannot keep up with the demand.
4. Only a minority (about 27%) of court reporting professionals in the United States actually work in courtrooms. The vast majority are independent court reporters (1,099 contractors) who are used by attorneys to produce word-for-word transcripts called statements during the case discovery phase.
5. Brief reporting job opportunities are very likely to grow as fast as the average for all occupations through 2012. (Source: US Department of Labor)
What do court reporting professionals gain?
Court reporting professionals had median annual earnings of $ 42,920 as of May 2004. The median 50 percent earned between $ 30,680 and $ 60,760. The lowest paid 10 percent earned less than $ 23,690 and the highest paid 10 percent earned more than $ 80,300. Median annual earnings in May 2004 was $ 41,070 for court reporting professionals working in local government.
Both compensation and methods of compensation for court reporting professionals vary based on the type of court reporting work, the experience of the individual court reporting professional, the level of certification achieved, and the region of the country. Official court reporters earn a salary and a per page fee for transcripts. Many salaried court reporting professionals supplement their income by doing freelance work. Freelance court reporting professionals receive a pay per job and a per page fee for transcripts. CART providers are paid by the hour. Stenocaptioners receive a salary and benefits if they work as employees of a captioning company; stenocaptioners who work as independent contractors are paid by the hour.
How to become a court reporting professional
Let’s be honest about it: Becoming a court reporting professional takes a serious level of commitment, effort, and money. It’s not easy, but the rewards make it worth it!
Most students start out at a court reporting school. These are typically private business universities located in large metropolitan areas. Please see this link for a list of NCRA approved schools. The training and practice course takes most people several years.
Most of the painstaking work is in developing transcription skills during live dictation. It starts out slowly and then builds up to speeds in excess of 200 words per minute. Accuracy and stamina are required to score hours of fast talk with dense material.
You will also need to rent or buy your equipment. A short report keyboard is required during training. Most students rent or buy a used manual machine (as opposed to a computer writer) for their initial education, but entering the job market, professional-quality equipment is a must. Today, the equipment used by court reporting professionals is an electronic court reporting machine, desktop computer, printer, laptop, and software to run on computers that translates keystrokes into English on the computer. screen.
Also, since most court reporting professionals are 1099 contractors, home office space and equipment is required, plus a fax machine, an extra phone line or two for faxing and business calls. An internet connection is a must to search for those hard-to-find words.
A new court reporting professional faces several years of diligent study, as well as equipment worth roughly five to ten thousand dollars.
Many states require a license. In states where court reporting professionals must be certified, you must pass the state certification exam. In other states where certification is not required, examinations to satisfy the National Court Reporting Association can certify that a court reporting professional has reached an appropriate level of competence.
