Court Reporting Technology Update

While there are yet more attempts to remove court reporters from the courtroom, claiming the move to digital reporting and typing pools is a “technological advancement,” if truth be told, the government need only look to realtime (voice-to-text) shorthand reporters to truly see technology at its best.

Briefly, realtime court reporting is a process whereby a trained court reporter, using a steno machine, notebook computer and realtime software, provides instant word-for-word speech-to-text translation for display.  When the software was initially developed, the only person who could benefit from the realtime display was the court reporter; there was no ability for others to view the text.  But today, a whole host of options and uses are available. 

Realtime in the litigation setting – lawyers and judges may use their laptops, which are loaded with litigation support software such as Summation, to view the realtime feed directly from the reporter.  Advantages of this are the ability to read the testimony as it is occurring; to mark and annotate text during the discovery or hearing or later; to perform word searches instantly; to print the transcript at day’s end; and to be able to conduct a review of the day’s testimony with colleagues and experts prior to the conclusion of an examination.  For those who are uncomfortable with the presence of a computer in front of them during a hearing, a rough draft transcript can be produced at day’s end with this technology. 

Realtime via the internet – not only can counsel be connected to the court reporter’s laptop, but experts or co-counsel can log into the hearing via the internet and view the testimony as it’s happening.  Vendors such as LiveNote and Speche provide a secure site on the web where invitees may log into the streaming realtime text of the hearing.  With instant messaging features, for example, co-counsel could send messages back and forth with comments, questions to ask, and the like. 

Wireless technology – many realtime reporters are now using secure wireless realtime “send” and “receive” devices.  You can be sitting 300 feet away from the court reporter and receive your realtime transcript text with no wires to trip over.  Multiple participants in the hearing can be connected to the wireless feed; as such, this technology in particular lends itself to large cases where counsel may be far away from the reporter and the witness and in difficult hearing range of the proceedings. 

Sync’d videotaped proceedings with transcript – by using a realtime reporter and trained videographer, a videotape (CD-ROM or other formats) and transcript of the proceedings can be “sync’d” together, so that the spoken word and the written record appear simultaneously on the screen for viewing. 

File formats – realtime court reporting software is “end user”-friendly.  File formats for litigation support programs like Summation and LiveNote, as well as word processing formats, are easily producible by the court reporter.  This feature is a real timesaver for law clerks in particular, who are often tasked with making a file “work” with the firm’s litigation support software.   

Hearing difficulties – realtime reporting can allow those with any kind of hearing loss to fully participate in the proceedings.  Brown & Jones Reporting, Inc. has provided this type of service to deaf and hard of hearing lawyers and also to other participants in the justice system, including accused persons and witnesses.  Realtime reporting can also assist those for whom English is a second language or who may have certain learning disabilities, where not only hearing the spoken word but seeing it gives these people a better understanding of what is being said. 

Realtime reporting technology is being applied to many other non-legal applications, such as captioning on television, captioning in live situations (to name but a few - conferences, business meetings, counseling sessions, weddings, graduations, educational classes) and webcasting of meetings.  High quality production of voice-to-text transcription as performed by a highly trained realtime court reporter has not been surpassed by any voice activation software to date.   The gold standard has been set by the technology and highly trained court reporter working hand-in-glove.