Court Reporting

Court Reporters v. Digital Recording and Voice Recognition: A Comprehensive Breakdown

27 Jun 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Digital Recording, Legal Technology, Litigation Support, Paralegals, Uncategorized, Voice Recognition

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

– Chuck Palahniuk

Not a day goes by I don’t read some sort of labor force doomsday article with a headline warning of technology, AI, and machines we can’t even begin to understand taking over every profession known to man; from folding laundry to performing complex radiographic studies and brain surgery. However, when you get past the scary headlines and read the content, most of these articles point out that while the technology may be there in theory and under extremely controlled laboratory settings, it is nowhere near the level of sophistication needed to perform these jobs in the real world, and would perhaps just cause an increase (ironically) in the production of incompetent automated consumer-complaint chatbots.

Having said that, and being a late Gen-Xer, I grew up with rapid technology growth and recognize when a newly introduced technology is beneficial for all, and conversely, when a new technology is simply a bunch of bells and whistles that does nothing more than complicate something that already exists. I also understand that when a truly innovative technology emerges, it will create far more jobs than it will eliminate, and sometimes it will create entire industries. For example, the refrigerator sent many ice and milk deliverymen to the unemployment lines, but created an entire frozen food industry, frozen and refrigerated trucking industry, not to mention the countless jobs in the design and production of millions of refrigerators. Granted this is a very old example, but this same principle can be applied to just about every technology that advances us; and technologies that do not spawn economic, workforce and industry growth that once seemed cutting-edge will end up in the graveyard beside the tombstones of LaserDisk and MySpace. A balanced human reaction to technology is to adapt to the game-changers, but to temporarily marvel, be amused by and then subsequently learn from the ones that failed more often than worked.

TECHNOLOGY IN THE LEGAL WORLD

Like all industries, the legal industry is being confronted every day with threats of technologies that will replace human beings, and if you read enough articles on LinkedIn, you may even be led to believe that lawyers will be completely replaced by AI in the next few years. But this is obviously not true.

Last month I attended an all-day seminar put on by the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association regarding AI and other technologies that are rapidly seeping into the daily operations of mid-sized to gigantic law firms all around the world. The emergence of very basic and simple AI doing the work of entry-level associates in the categorization and organization of millions of pages of discovery documents was discussed, and a very refreshing, optimistic view of this technology’s place in the practice of law was the resounding takeaway. Using AI technology to relieve humans of the mundane tasks of sorting and organizing, and instead spending that crucial first few years as an associate actually practicing law will only produce more prepared and experienced, enthusiastic lawyers.

TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN THREATENING COURT REPORTERS FOR DECADES

The litigation support industry, especially the court reporting industry, has been challenged by emerging technologies since the advent of the tape-recorder. Over the last two decades, Courts of Common Pleas across America have experimented with replacing human court reporters with digital recording equipment to the detriment of not only due process and expediency in appeals, but also to the detriment of the record itself. In fact, many of these courts who have tried the digital recording route have now brought back the human court reporters after quickly realizing that bringing in digital recording equipment as a substitute for a highly skilled court reporter was a giant step backwards in courtroom technology. So why did this happen in the first place? There are two main causes: flawed budgetary studies and misunderstood technology.

Obviously, replacing human court reporters with digital recording equipment would significantly loosen the budgetary constraints placed on countless communities across the country. The problem is, digital recording equipment can’t do what court reporters do. Replacing court reporters with recording equipment is analogous to a community replacing all human police officers with simple cameras on every street corner. Sure, this would improve your budget, but what you’d be left with is a lawless, fearful and anxious community. And this is obviously not an apples-to-apples substitution. No one would ever think or suggest that an army of cameras can do the job of a human police force. Perhaps this replacement seems so ridiculous because the general public understands the importance of human police officers, the complexities of their jobs, and realizes that a camera could in no way replace them in keeping our communities safe and lawful.

However, the same thing can’t be said for court reporters. We are a relatively small society of professionals, and with the exception of some of our friends and family, most of the general public and even our legislators don’t really understand what it is we do or how we do it. In fact, even Hollywood still portrays us in modern movies as a simple person sitting in front of a mechanical machine with an endless roll of paper cascading onto the cinematic courtroom floor. We live in a largely pop culture world, so this is how the general public understands our profession. And if this was actually the case, I would agree; isn’t there a better way to do this?

But in reality, court reporters use extremely sophisticated technology. Even so, not a month goes by where I don’t have a witness in a deposition at a break ask me, “Why don’t you just record this?” My answer is always, “Recordings can’t make a transcript.” And they always then say, “What about voice recognition? Why don’t you use that?” To that I simply say that technology like that doesn’t exist yet to even begin to compete with what we do. The fact of the matter is, our profession and the skill and technology behind it is grossly misunderstood.

In this article, I will attempt to explain in great detail the technology and training of a modern-day court reporter. Then I will provide an extremely comprehensive breakdown of how digital recording and voice recognition technologies as they exist today stack up against our current technology (if at all). Finally, I will end with some thoughts on technology in general that will hopefully give a more optimistic prognosis for our future as working humans, and how we should all react to emerging technologies that begin to enter and threaten whatever industry it is we make our living.

COURT REPORTING TECHNOLOGY

First, let’s set the record straight. Court reporters do not dictate from paper notes and then use simple word processing to create a transcript. We do not use paper in any way. We do not use purely mechanical devices. Instead, the technology we do use is incredibly sophisticated, creating an immediate readable record at a 99-percent accuracy rate or above, capturing complex testimony at rates of 225 words per minute and higher.

To put that in perspective: An extremely proficient typist on a traditional QWERTY keyboard will max out at about 110 words per minute; the average human speaks at about 180 words per minute; when you add multiple speakers at once, spoken words per minute can exceed 300 in lightning fast bursts. Because of this, a person trying to capture the spoken word using a traditional QWERTY keyboard will start to fall behind after about the first 10 seconds of a deposition or trial. Conversely, court reporters capture every word as it is being spoken, including punctuation and speaker identification, over sometimes mind-numbing increments of eight hours or more, never falling behind. So how do we do this?

MACHINE SHORTHAND

The first six months of a court reporter’s training is spent learning a new language. We call this language machine shorthand, or simply “steno.” As stated above, a traditional QWERTY keyboard can’t capture the spoken word without falling behind almost immediately. To handle the speeds of human speech and conversation, the court reporting machine and machine shorthand were born.

Our modern-day machines are extremely complex computers with hypersensitive keyboards consisting of 22 blank keys and a long blank number bar. The spoken English language is then broken down into combinations of sounds and phrases that the court reporter will capture using keystrokes consisting of thousands of combinations of these blank keys.

The six months spent learning this new language consists of learning keystroke combinations that correspond to sounds of spoken English, and memorizing thousands of keystroke combinations that represent frequently used phrasing in the English language, as well as thousands of brief keystrokes used for commonly used words and complicated medical and industry terms. Our left hand is responsible for capturing the beginning consonant sounds of a word or syllable. Our right hand is responsible for capturing the ending consonant sounds of a word or syllable. Our thumbs are responsible for the middle vowel sounds of any word or syllable. So unlike the QWERTY keyboard, where one letter is typed at a time to form a word, on our machines we type the whole word or phrase at once in a split second. This is very analogous to playing single notes versus chords on a piano keyboard. In addition, we learn keystroke combinations used for all punctuation and speaker identification.

EAR-HAND COORDINATION

After the new language of machine shorthand is learned by the court reporter in training, the entirety of the next couple years in school will be spent building speed. True speed-building is achieved when the court reporter takes his or her mind out of the process and learns to let their ears communicate directly with their hands. When the conscious mind of the court reporter gets involved and becomes hyper-focused on the words being spoken, he or she will quickly fall behind. Instead, we use the capacity of our conscious minds to survey what is happening in the room, constantly scanning with our eyes to pick up not only who is speaking at any given time, but to pick up on any body language around the room that would indicate someone else is about to speak at the same time as somebody else. So we need to be ready to use some of that brain capacity for retention until the simultaneous speaking is finished, and then we can go back to letting all the words go directly from ear to hand.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we are not listening to the words being spoken. In the court reporting profession, there is a big difference between listening and hearing. We are definitely listening and understanding. However, we are not focusing on each individual word. Rather, what we are “hearing” goes directly from ear to hand with no thought involved. It is this crucial balance of listening and direct ear-to-hand hearing that enables the court reporter to remain calm and collected, and to not rattle or fall behind when conversation becomes stacked or highly contentious.

COMPUTER-AIDED TRANSCRIPTION (CAT) SOFTWARE

Learning the language of machine shorthand and mastering that language on our court reporting machines is only half of the technology we use in producing incredibly accurate and immediate transcripts. The second half of court reporting technology is computer-aided transcription (CAT) software. Like our machines themselves, CAT software is extremely sophisticated, very expensive, and requires separate training for a court reporter to truly become comfortable with and proficient in all its functions and capabilities.

CAT software is run on a laptop, and that laptop will be communicating with our court reporting machines either wirelessly or through USB, and will be translating the keystrokes of machine shorthand into written English on the laptop screen in real time. But it’s not just a bunch of words showing up on the screen in little or no format, like a Word document. CAT software translates into an immediate transcript format with specific spacing, line numbers, timestamping, margins, and automatic punctuation at the ends of questions and answers.

What is actually happening here is the court reporter is instantaneously translating spoken English into machine shorthand in the form of quick keystrokes on the court reporting machine, and then the CAT software is translating those complicated keystrokes of machine shorthand into written English on a screen. There is virtually no delay in the time someone speaks and when the written words show up on the screen. These two levels of translation happen that fast and incredibly accurately.

REALTIME FEEDS

Another capability of CAT software is sending out feeds of the realtime transcript to other devices wirelessly and even remotely. The court reporter will connect his or her laptop to a private, secure wifi router, and any attorney or judge can then receive the realtime feed on their own tablet or laptop using a free downloadable app that is compatible with the court reporter’s CAT software.

This immediate feed of the court reporter’s transcript can also be sent around the world by setting up a remote login for any attorney in a location other than the venue of the proceeding to view the transcript in real time. The court reporter will set this up, and their CAT software will send the feed to the remote hosting cloud server for anyone given login access to follow along with the deposition or trial.

I could go on in further detail of all the functions of CAT software, but we now have a basic understanding of the very sophisticated and complex technologies court reporters use in capturing the spoken word and creating transcripts. More detailed functions will be explained as we delve into the exercise of comparing court reporting technology to both digital recording and voice recognition, the two technologies that have posed the greatest threat to the court reporting profession.

But just how credible are these threats?

COURT REPORTERS V. DIGITAL RECORDING

To begin the analysis of court reporting versus digital recording technologies, it will be helpful to first introduce a table to provide a quick overview of what each are capable of with respect to making a record of a deposition or trial:

Now, the table above is fairly self-explanatory, and it is quite obvious from a cursory glance that court reporting technology is vastly superior to digital recording. But when we delve further into the analysis, the shortcomings of digital recording become so apparent it is a wonder how such a limited technology could ever have been seen as a threat to court reporters in the first place.

A DIGITAL RECORDING HAS ZERO FILTERS

Unless courtrooms and conference rooms where depositions are held suddenly become professional recording studios with separate equalizers for each microphone and a talented technician running the soundboard at all times, any mic in the room will pick up any sound with absolutely no discrimination or filtration, and all this sound becomes part of the official record.

Because of this, in the table above, digital recording receives a “sort of” rating with respect to capturing testimony at 99% and above accuracy. Instead of a clear answer to a very important passage of testimony, what you may end up with on a record made by digital recording is a cough, a rustling of papers, or any number of extraneous sounds that mics will pick up indiscriminately.

Court reporters, on the other hand, hear in three dimensions and have the ability to filter sounds. We deal with all sorts of noises during any proceeding that shouldn’t be part of the record in a very simple way: We don’t even hear them. An experienced court reporter has perfected their ear-hand coordination in such a way that the only thing getting through to their hands are the sounds of spoken language. There have been times when I’ve been in a deposition and the questioning attorney has requested to go off the record for a minute because there were very loud sirens happening outside on the street, and until he said anything about it, I hadn’t even noticed them and was having no trouble at all taking down the testimony. As for a cough or a rustling of papers, we don’t even notice those types of noises, and they never interfere with the record.

Courts that have brought in recording equipment to replace human court reporters quickly recognized the problem of lack of filters on recording equipment, and during a high-profile criminal trial or extremely complex and drawn-out civil case will bring in a human reporter to be the official record. There is simply too much at stake in many cases on any given day in courtrooms across the country to risk crucial testimony being lost due to faulty equipment or a garbled or unintelligible recording.

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS

Dealing with multiple speakers talking at once is one of the biggest challenges for court reporters, and it is something we really don’t encounter until our first job after school. All multi-voice Q&A testing in school, although dictated at very high speeds, is one voice at a time. However, having learned ear-hand coordination in school, we deal with multiple speakers at once by having one voice go directly from ear to hand, and we use retention techniques to handle the other voices, separating them out in our heads until all the testimony has been captured. Speaking at the same time is part of human conversation and happens at every deposition and every trial, so being able to handle multiple speakers at once is crucial to making a clear and accurate record.

In the same way that recording devices can’t filter and differentiate between a cough and a human voice, they also can’t separate out multiple voices at once. When more than one person is speaking simultaneously and the proceeding is being digitally recorded, what you get for a record is a cacophonous mess of human voices; completely stacked and unintelligible.

SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION

Even when all participants are speaking one at a time, another crucial aspect of a record is the identification of who exactly is speaking. Now, unless each speaker clearly identifies themselves before they start speaking, a digital recording has no way to perform speaker identification.

Court reporters, however, are trained in speaker identification, and have multiple keystrokes that will immediately identify any number of speakers before they speak. It is one of the first things we learn how to do once we learn machine shorthand, and whenever a record is made by a human court reporter, there will be no question as to who is saying what.

CREATING A WRITTEN TRANSCRIPT

Court reporters produce written transcripts. It’s what we do. We produce an immediate realtime transcript as it is happening (think closed-captioning), and we can produce a final, edited and proofread, certified transcript the same day or next day after a proceeding is completed, depending on the length of the proceeding.

A digital recording does not make a transcript. Ever. In fact, when an attorney wants a transcript from a trial that was digitally recorded, they will obtain the digital file from the court and then give it to an independent court reporting firm like us to transcribe it. And because of the usually poor quality of recorded testimony, we charge a premium for this service, and the transcript is most oftentimes riddled with inaudible and unintelligible passages which would not otherwise be there had a live reporter taken down the proceeding in the first place.

I think it must be said here, too, that when I say we produce transcripts, don’t think of a huge stack of paper. Hard copy transcripts are rarely ever ordered in today’s world. What we do produce are click-searchable, indexed, highly functional digital files with hyperlinks to digital exhibits. Again, a digital recording cannot do any of this.

HUMAN FACTORS

The rest of the above table deals with some duties of court reporters that a digital recorder obviously can’t do, like marking exhibits, immediately reading back, and swearing witnesses. These ancillary job functions are just as important as any other in preserving a complete record of a deposition or trial, and without a human there, they simply can’t be done.

It is now very clear that court reporting technology versus digital recording technology is no contest in the creation, production and preservation of an official record of a deposition or trial.

Next up is voice recognition technology. Is this a credible threat?

COURT REPORTERS V. VOICE RECOGNITION

Again, as you can see from just a cursory review of the above table, voice recognition technology stacks up just as poorly to existing court reporting technology as digital recording does. But before I get into the details of the table, let’s discuss two glaring problems with voice recognition that I believe make it highly unlikely it will have a significant role in creating records of depositions or trials at any time in the near future.

THE INHERENT FLAW

The biggest problem with voice recognition technology is that at its most fundamental level, it relies on digital recording and microphones to make it work. All the same difficulties digital recording ran into due to lack of filters will inevitably show up in the exact same way with voice recognition. Extraneous noises will interfere. Multiple speakers at once will create an unreadable transcript. Speakers will not be identified unless they state who they are before they speak. No matter how sophisticated and accurate the voice recognition technology becomes, this inherent flaw will probably always be there.

VOICE RECOGNITION DEVELOPMENT IS A BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY

Of all the arguments against voice recognition in the court reporting world, perhaps one of the most important is the one I’ve never really heard anyone talk about. The developers of voice recognition technology are the tech giants of the world. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, Facebook; they all have billions invested in its research and development. Therefore, to get any kind of return on this enormous investment, the reach they have in mind is focused on personal, single-user applications that do not come close to meeting the needs of the relatively miniscule court reporting industry.

We have all seen and most likely used what they have come up with so far, and for the applications it is used in presently it is helpful, but so far from perfect. Most of us have used speech to text to send a text or an email, and sometimes the results are laughable. But in this very informal application, it serves its purpose of hands-free written communication. We have all gotten used to deciphering the mistakes voice recognition makes by using the context of the overall message and even from past experiences where we have seen the same errors. But I invite you to try something. Take out your phone, or if you use Dragon software on your computer, proceed to use the speech to text app you have, but this time have two people talk at the same time and have another person coughing. Check the results of the written record you have. Now extrapolate that over an eight-hour deposition, and you were probably better off recording the deposition with a 40-year-old microphone and a RadioShack tape-recorder and giving that tape to a court reporter to transcribe.

Again, the billions of dollars in R&D being spent on voice recognition presently is mostly for single-user, personal applications. To create a voice recognition software specifically for the court reporting industry that could handle multiple speakers at once, filter extraneous noises, identify speakers before they speak, punctuate without the speaker speaking his or her punctuation, and producing an immediate transcript in the proper format would require billions more in R&D for an industry that wouldn’t even come close to generating the necessary return on investment. Even if the software license was $1,000,000 per court reporter or court to use this software, it would not be worth it for the tech giants to develop this software. Now, over time, and building upon the research and development of others, the technology will improve. But to say it’s even close to being a competent substitute for court reporting technology as it exists today is simply not true.

CREATING A TRANSCRIPT AND HUMAN FACTORS

Just like digital recording technology, voice recognition technology cannot produce a transcript at the same level of accuracy, expediency and formatting that human court reporters can. In addition, voice recognition is not able to on its own swear witnesses, mark exhibits, or stop a proceeding due to a soft-spoken witness. In many of the same ways digital recording does, voice recognition falls incredibly short in matching the expertise and advanced technology currently used by human court reporters.

THE FUTURE OF THE COURT REPORTING PROFESSION

As courts across the country continue to bring back human court reporters in lieu of experimental digital recording equipment, the future of our industry is bright. Not to mention the fact that in the world of civil litigation, deposition and discovery, which is probably the most lucrative of all the fields a court reporter can work in, human court reporters have never been replaced.

However, due to many of the misconceptions about our field mentioned at the beginning of this article, enrollment is down in court reporting programs all over the country, and in many instances schools and programs have been eliminated completely. With an aging population of currently working court reporters, there will be a shortage of court reporters within the next five years in every city in the United States to meet the needs of the steady or increasing industry of civil litigation. Will this create a crisis in due process and cause a monumental roadblock in the already congested civil dockets of our State Courts? That obviously has yet to be seen. But one thing is certain; court reporters perform an absolutely vital role in our justice system, and as our numbers dwindle and are not replaced by new reporters, the justice system we rely upon and recognize now will not exist.

“ON A LONG ENOUGH TIMELINE, THE SURVIVAL RATE FOR EVERYONE DROPS TO ZERO”

I chose this quote to open this article to demonstrate that I am not just writing this with a bias toward the field in which I work. Given enough time and human progress, everything will be different and unrecognizable. In 100 or 200 or 300 years from now, probably none of the jobs that exist today will exist as they do now, including court reporters.

This quote is very nihilistic in its “nothing really matters” sentiment, but a little nihilism in the world can keep us grounded and focused on the now. There is an entire industry of prediction that is more often than not wrong, and is ultimately responsible for doomsday headlines we scroll through every day. Technology and AI are a very hot topic right now. But unlike any other time in history, we are being bombarded with articles written about theoretical technology with headlines that read as if the technology is already there.

If a technology is threatening your industry, do some research. Is this technology real or theoretical? Does the new technology do your job better than you do, or is it taking a step backwards? Does this new technology improve upon what you do and will it actually help you do your job better?

I guess a good rule of thumb is to keep your eye on technologies in your industry. If they don’t improve upon what it is you do now, dismiss them. If they can improve what you do and make your life easier, implement them. If they threaten to take the place of what you do, do something about it. Adapt and keep up.

As far as the court reporting industry is concerned, on this timeline in the year 2018 and into the foreseeable future, we are the undisputed champions of the capture and preservation of the record in the legal world. Sure, we suffer the blows of theoretical punches year after year, but theoretical punches don’t hurt us or knock us down. They only make us adapt and become even more prepared for the real punches that will inevitably come our way.

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About the Author:

Todd L. Persson has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2002 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland-based litigation support firm Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. He has spoken on the future of court reporting and technology on the Stenographers World Radio national podcast, has had blogs featured nationally by the National Court Reporters Association and the American Translators Association, and has contributed articles to the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Journal. To read Todd’s full bio, visit our Partners page. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

CRP Blog Editors in Chief:

Grace Hilpert-Roach has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 1992 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. To read Grace’s full bio, visit our Partners Page. Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Christine Zarife Green has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2008 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. To read Christine’s full bio, visit our Partners Page. Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

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The Benefits of 7 Calendar Day Standard Delivery and Exhibit Bundled Transcripts

04 May 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Legal Technology, Litigation Support, Paralegals, Uncategorized

When you are working with court reporting firms and have ordered a transcript after a deposition, it is obviously important to you and your clients that the testimony is captured completely and accurately. Without a motion or a stipulation among counsel, you only get one shot per witness in discovery, so that transcript better be nothing short of near perfect. However, there are two other significant factors to consider when hiring court reporters: What is the standard delivery time, and what file types are you receiving with your standard order?

Now, standard delivery times and file types vary from firm to firm, and this can significantly affect the total cost to you, depending on when you need the transcript and what transcript formats you find most beneficial. In this article, I will discuss the benefits of the 7 calendar day standard delivery and the Exhibit Bundled PDF Transcript, along with a brief video at the end that highlights the functionality of exhibit bundled transcripts.

4 Benefits of the 7 Calendar Day Standard Delivery

As a court reporter with 15 years of experience, the most common standard delivery time I have seen in the industry is “8 to 10 days.” But wait; even that is a little misleading, because usually that means business days. So more often than not, if the firm you are working with operates on an 8 to 10 day standard delivery schedule, you are not seeing that transcript for two weeks; and if you need it any sooner than that, you will start to pay expedited rates.

However, there are other options out there. Some court reporters and firms actually do operate on a 7 calendar day standard delivery schedule. I personally have been working within this structure for the past 12 years, and there are several obvious benefits.

You have your transcript in a week

When discovery moves into the deposition phase, depos are often scheduled in bunches and quite frequently close in time to one another. Knowing that you will have your transcripts within one week of taking your depositions without starting to pay expedited rates is a great benefit to you and your clients. This short turnaround allows you to review transcripts before the next depos in the case, which is particularly helpful when you reach the expert deposition phase of discovery. Finding dates where all counsel in a case are available to attend depositions can be tricky enough. Having to wait around for transcripts should not delay or complicate the deposition scheduling process even further.

Keep everybody organized

7 calendar days means exactly that. If you take a deposition on a Monday, you have your transcript the next Monday; take the depo on Tuesday, you have your transcript the next Tuesday…and so on. When working with reporters who work on a 7 calendar day standard delivery schedule, there’s no need to open up a calendar and count business days around weekends and holidays to figure out exactly when you will be receiving your transcripts, making scheduling for everybody much simpler and more organized. This is also beneficial for the reporter, as he or she always knows exactly when their transcripts are due.

Cut down on expedited costs

As stated earlier, depositions are often scheduled in bunches, and review of previous transcripts prior to subsequent depositions is extremely helpful and may cause you to alter your deposition outline. If you are working with reporters and firms operating on an 8 to 10 business day delivery schedule, you will be paying an expedited page rate if you want your transcripts for review prior to depositions scheduled the next week. These extra costs can be avoided by working with reporters who operate on the more efficient 7 calendar day delivery schedule, allowing you to be more prepared for your next depositions without expedited charges.

Streamline the entire discovery process

Discovery in complex litigation doesn’t have to be unnecessarily drawn out due to litigation support. If you are taking many video depositions in a complex case and ordering transcript synced videos, court reporting firms that operate on the 7 calendar day delivery schedule for transcripts will most likely apply this schedule to all the litigation support services they offer, including delivery of digital or hard copy videos and transcript synced videos. So if you’re looking for a more streamlined and organized discovery process, inquire about standard delivery times and seek out litigation support who operate on a more efficient standard delivery schedule.

The Exhibit Bundled PDF Transcript

Along with standard delivery times, another important factor in choosing your litigation support is what file types you will be receiving with your standard transcript order, and what (if any) formats you may be paying extra for. Being a big fan of organization and efficiency personally, my favorite transcript file type to produce is the exhibit bundled PDF (or PTZ if you prefer e-transcripts). The bundled transcript allows you to have your deposition exhibits and the transcript all in one super file with hyperlinks to pull up exhibits every time they are mentioned in the body of the transcript. Not only does this make your transcript review process more efficient, but it cuts down on downloads and subsequent cataloging within your case management system. If you are using a case management software that supports PTZ files, the software will automatically separate out the exhibits from the transcripts and place them in the appropriate folders within that system.

To see the benefits of the Exhibit Bundled PDF Transcript, watch the brief video below:

Conclusion

There are many choices for litigation support in the City of Cleveland, all over the State of Ohio, and nationwide. When it comes to court reporting, reputable firms will most always produce extremely complete and accurate transcripts. However, the levels of efficiency and emphasis on organization will vary greatly from firm to firm. Working with litigation support who value efficiency, expediency, functionality of their products, and organization will in turn make your entire discovery process more streamlined and manageable in all your cases.

Cleveland Reporting Partners has always worked on a 7 calendar day regular delivery schedule and offers a wide variety of transcript formats (including exhibit bundled PDFs) as standard with any transcript order. Visit our court reporting and legal video pages to learn more.

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HTTPS and Litigation Support: Protecting Sensitive Data In Transit

13 Apr 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Court Reporting, Legal Technology, Litigation Support, Paralegals, Uncategorized

By now we are all probably aware of Senate Joint Resolution 34 (H.Res.230) in which the House voted to repeal the broadband privacy regulations introduced in 2016 that prohibited Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from selling private browser activity to the highest bidder, or to anyone whatsoever. What’s done is done, so no sense spending any amount of time trying to figure out the rationale behind this or even getting into any kind of political debate. However, there are steps we can take to combat this loss of privacy, and it all starts with how we behave online. There are some simple ways we can safeguard our online activity which will make the Internet more secure and private moving forward.

The battle for our privacy is fought on two fronts: the user (you), and the business owners who operate websites to promote their businesses, products, and services. Both have a responsibility toward the goal of making the Internet a more secure place. However, since this article is being written from the perspective of a small business owner, I will take you through what we do on our end to protect the privacy of our browsing population, and particularly how this relates to the litigation support industry where sensitive data is shared daily between us and our clients.

GENERAL BACKGROUND

To start, and before we get to the litigation support industry, we must understand a few general properties of web browsing, site security, encryption, and the way in which data is passed on from a browser to a website and what happens to that data once it is there.

HTTP v. HTTPS

By now anyone who is frequently online should know that sites displaying a padlock are considered safe and verified, and sites without it are not. But what is really going on here, and what does this really mean?

There are two main protocols in which data is communicated between a user and a website. The first is HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), in which data is sent in plain text without any sort of encryption. The second is HTTPS, or HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure with SSL (Secure Socket Layer), or the more preferred TLS (Transport Layer Security).

Since data is sent in plain text via the HTTP protocol, it can be more easily intercepted and compromised by people seeking to steal your data, and even by ISPs, who are now in the business of collecting as much unprotected data as it can to be sold to third-party vendors to do with as they wish. Furthermore, with HTTP, not only does your ISP know which sites you are visiting, but they also can easily collect any personal information you may be entering onto any forms on those websites. Thus, I think we all have learned by now to never enter financial information of any kind onto a form within a website with an HTTP URL.

Conversely, the HTTPS protocol offers a layer of protection by encrypting any personal data you may enter onto a website, greatly reducing the possibility of interception. So while your ISP may know which websites you are visiting, they do not know the content of what you are entering on an HTTPS secure site. Because of this, it is absolutely mandatory to have an HTTPS certificate in place before any business begins to offer any sort of online payment for products or services.

HTTPS ONLY PROTECTS DATA IN TRANSIT

Now, it must be stressed that while HTTPS encryption does protect data in transit, it does not in any way prevent a site from being hacked, nor does it protect data at rest. Reputable ISPs are not in the business of hacking. Rather, they may take advantage of the unsecured data that is transmitted. HTTPS will protect against your ISP collecting data you may enter onto a secure site. However, it will not prevent a sophisticated hacker from getting at any data at rest on any site, secure or unsecure. Thus, as a small business owner, even with an HTTPS certificate, it is good practice to eliminate any personal client data entered onto your forms as soon as you extract the necessary information, leaving nothing on your site of any worth to a hacker; that is, unless you are a larger company with the resources in place beyond a simple HTTPS certificate to prevent or deter malicious attacks. As a company, we do this by purging log files, e-mails, and form data from our site once it is acquired.

HOW IS AN HTTPS CERTIFICATE OBTAINED?

Most web hosting providers will offer both secured and unsecured servers and will charge extra for the HTTPS server. However, there are a few other things your site will need before you can get on the HTTPS server. In other words, you can’t just call up your hosting provider and say please put me on your secure server, here’s some extra money.

Here is where having a modern, professionally built website will benefit you, your business, and your clients. You will need a web server that will support SSL or TLS encryption. You will also need an IP address so that certificate issuers can validate your certificate. Finally, you will need to have a good working relationship with your webmaster, as even when a certificate can be issued, there may be some problems on your site that your webmaster will need to sort out with your hosting provider to ensure access to the secure server. This could be as simple as a certain font that is preventing your site from receiving the padlock in your URL. This is tricky business, sometimes a mystery, so it’s best to leave it to the tech professionals to set you up correctly.

Once you receive your HTTPS certificate, you are sending out the very positive message to your clients, or anyone else visiting your website, that you take data security very seriously. And this should be one of the goals of every small business owner who encourages clients to enter data onto forms on their websites, especially in light of the recent acts of Congress.

HTTPS AND LITIGATION SUPPORT

Now that we understand some basics about secure browsing and data in transit, let’s see how this pertains to the litigation support industry, where sensitive data is shared online between our clients and us daily. Most litigation support firms will have several forms on their websites where clients can schedule services, submit subpoena information, or request some form of login permission for access to a third-party client repository host. This is where the HTTPS comes into play.

When our clients are filling out online scheduling forms, they are entering personal data such as email addresses, phone numbers, witness information, physical locations, etc. Now, without HTTPS encryption, this information is easily intercepted in plain text by any number of individuals, including ISPs who are now free to use this information in any way they please.

Another common form on litigation support websites is the subpoena form. Now, this form asks for even more information than a scheduling form, including contents of a duces tecum, which may or may not contain highly sensitive data, as well as personal information of opposing counsel, the company or person being subpoenaed, and other data that really should be protected with encryption.

Yet another form offered on most litigation support websites is a form to request login permission to a third-party client repository host. This form will require much of the same information as an online scheduling form and should be encrypted.

ONLINE CLIENT REPOSITORIES

Most litigation support firms will offer online client repositories, and with few exceptions, these repositories are hosted by third parties. Many, but not all, third-party repository hosts will be HTTPS secure, but should also have extremely high levels of security to comply with HIPAA or other regulations for the sharing of files online. Most every litigation support firm will boast HIPAA compliance in the use of these repositories, and rightly so. We pay these vendors to be in compliance and ensure that our clients’ data and files are virtually untouchable by malicious attacks.

But here’s the curious thing. While most all litigation support companies offer this level of security on the back end in delivery of the final product, it’s the front end that oftentimes is left completely unsecured and vulnerable. In other words, many litigation support companies will have extremely secure third-party repositories but zero protection on their own sites in the form of HTTPS certification. To ensure client privacy and protection on both the front and back end, it may be a good idea for all litigation support companies who house forms on their websites to obtain HTTPS certification, sending the clear message that data security on all levels is taken very seriously.

CLEVELAND REPORTING PARTNERS’ HTTPS CERTIFICATE

Data security in all aspects of our business, from scheduling to production, to digitally signing all our transcripts, has always been a top priority of CRP. If you are reading this article, you are on our site right now. If you are on a mobile device, to view our security certificate (or the certificate or lack thereof of any website you visit) simply click on the three little dots in the upper right corner of the URL bar and select the “info” icon.

The first message you will see is; “Your connection to this site is private.” If you then click on “details,” you will see the following message: “Your connection to clereporting.com is encrypted using a modern cipher suite. The connection uses TLS 1.2. The connection is encrypted and authenticated using AES_128_GCM and uses ECDHE_RSA as the key exchange mechanism.”

In laymen’s terms: Any data in transit on our site is secure, encrypted, and not intercepted by an ISP or others. Furthermore, the HTTPS certificate is reissued regularly and only lasts for a few months until it is reissued. Certificate issuers do not just issue HTTPS to a domain forever. They will check back every few months to ensure nothing has changed on the website that could cause the certification to become invalid.

Conversely, if you perform the same exercise above for any HTTP website you are visiting, you will see the very self-explanatory message; “Your connection to this site is not private,” with no further details. Now, this should cause you to pause and maybe think twice before entering any personal or client information onto any form that is housed on an HTTP website.

CLEVELAND REPORTING PARTNERS AND DATA AT REST

But what about data at rest? Remember earlier, HTTPS does not protect data at rest on any website against sophisticated hackers or malicious attack. To protect data at rest, we simply eliminate it. It is the practice of Cleveland Reporting Partners to purge any data entered onto our online forms after we have extracted what we need to conduct business. It’s that simple. This includes the website logs, and any other personal copies of that data.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AS AN INDIVIDUAL TO PROTECT YOUR DATA?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, the battle for online privacy is fought by both the individual users and by the companies operating websites. We have already covered what companies can do to protect data in transit with HTTPS certification, but what can your everyday user do to protect themselves?

The simple answer is VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks. VPNs are added layers of security on the individual user end to basically mask browsing activity from an ISP. Here is a link to some simple ways to create your own VPNs and the benefits they offer. Some are free and take only a few minutes to set up, and others will be a monthly charge, depending on how secure you want to get.

CONCLUSION

We can all do our part to make the Internet a safer place and to protect our privacy. If you’re a business that encourages clients to share information with you using online forms, it’s a good idea to get your website secured with HTTPS and a site certificate from a trusted certificate authority. If you’re an individual user, use a VPN, or try to limit the information you enter onto forms housed on websites that use the vulnerable HTTP protocol.

Now, when it comes to litigation support, be cognizant of the levels of security the companies you work with have put into place to protect not only your private data but the data of your clients. A good place to start to gauge the level of importance the companies you work with place on front-end data security is to simply look up at the URL of their website: Does their domain start with “https”?

HELPFUL LINKS

What Level of SSL or TLS is Required by HIPAA?

VPN Comparisons 2017

How to Set Up A VPN in 10 Minutes For Free (And Why You Urgently Need One)

You may also like:

Digital Signatures: Protecting the Data Integrity of Electronic Transcripts.

7 Benefits of MP4 Video Deposition Streaming Capability.

About the Author:

Todd L. Persson has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2002 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland-based litigation support firm Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. He has spoken on the future of court reporting and technology on the Stenographers World Radio national podcast, has had blogs featured nationally by the National Court Reporters Association and the American Translators Association, and has contributed content to the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Journal. To read Todd’s full bio, visit our Partners page. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

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7 Benefits of MP4 Video Deposition Streaming Capability

22 Mar 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Legal Technology, Legal Video, Legal Video Streaming, Litigation Support, Paralegals

It is 2017, and we live in a streaming-dominated world. We stream our entertainment and our news. We often stream out of boredom while waiting in lines, sitting in the airport or on a plane, or just about any other place where we find ourselves in an unavoidable state of static inertia with nothing but time to kill and a device in our hands. Thus, it may be time to expect secure streaming capabilities from your litigation support for all your video depositions.

Is it time we ditch the DVD format when it comes to video depositions? Well, not completely. There are still instances where you will need your DVDs, such as when you are in a trial playback at a venue with limited or no wifi access or technology to support streaming. But you can come pretty close to eliminating these relics completely by working with litigation support and court reporting firms who offer video streaming as part of their client repository.

Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC created its business model from the perspective of a litigator, and we imagined what tools we would want or expect from the litigation support we would work with. Video deposition streaming was very high on that list, as many of us at CRP do not even have DVD/CD-ROM drives on our laptops, and we are frequently using tablets which obviously do not have this hardware. Because of this, when we created our online client office and repository, CRP Direct, video streaming capability was a must.

7 Benefits of Video Deposition Streaming

1. It’s Secure

Our cloud storage partner and host of CRP Direct is incredibly secure with 256-bit AES encryption, which is the level of security used by the Federal Government for Top Secret files and beyond the level of encryption required by HIPAA. All your videos are password protected with passwords that you create and can change at any time. Simply let us know who in your practice will need access, and CRP will make sure access is granted with separate passwords for all members of your team.

2. It’s Immediate

Log in to CRP Direct and start watching. It’s that simple. No waiting, no downloading, no hassle. Easily and quickly navigate through the entire file using your touchscreen or click and drag with a mouse on the play bar. Of course, if you need to download onto your computer or thumb drive, just click “download.”

3. It’s Ultra-Responsive

Whether you’re using a smartphone, tablet, PC or Mac, accessing and streaming all your video depositions in CRP Direct is effortless and ultra-responsive. No more searching for all your DVDs in a matter where there have been many video depositions taken. They are all right in front of you on any of your screens and ready for viewing. Easily jump from one deposition to the next without the hassle and bulk of hard copy DVDs.

4. It’s Convenient

No longer are you bound by the memory constraints of the device you are using. Lengthy video depositions can be many, many gigs in file size, so without streaming capability, viewing your video depositions on tablets and smartphones would not be possible. Let CRP worry about file sizes and memory space, and you can focus on your work product freely on any of your favorite devices.

5. It’s Time-Saving

All members of your team will have immediate access to all video depositions in a case, even if you are all over the country. No more waiting for DVD copies to be made or ordered and sent around the country in the mail. You can all stream simultaneously no matter where you are, anytime, on any device.

6. It’s High Quality

For streaming capability to work in CRP Direct, our cloud storage partner requires files of MP4 quality or greater. Does this mean that you will pay extra for the higher quality video files? Absolutely not. Cleveland Reporting Partners is proud to offer as standard MP4 files with your electronic file order.

7. It Will Streamline Your Workload

Imagine having the freedom to annotate in a transcript file or have a Word document open while working on a depo summary without having to click in and out of tabs on your desktop or laptop and having your video deps seamlessly streaming on a tablet next to your computer. Or imagine not having to pack or worry about misplacing physical DVDs when working on a large case out of town. All your videos will be at your fingertips whenever you want them, on whatever device you choose to work on. These and other conveniences are possible when working with litigation support who offer video streaming capabilities.

Again, there may be times when you must have a DVD copy of any video deposition, and we know this. CRP is happy to provide DVDs for any video depositions ordered. At the end of every job, our CLVS videographers will always ask you what formats you require. However, when you work with Cleveland Reporting Partners, we encourage taking advantage of the video streaming capabilities we have put into place for your convenience and ease. Our clients know that if they ever have any questions or concerns, tech support is a simple phone call or email away.

In another article, we discuss 9 attributes of exceptional court reporters.

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The Ins and Outs of Hiring a Certified Judicial Interpreter For Deposition or Trial

11 Mar 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Judicial Interpreters, Litigation Support, Paralegals

There will come a point in the career of almost every litigator where he or she will inevitably need to depose or examine a non-English speaking person in deposition or trial. As a court reporter with 15 years of experience, having attended countless depositions over my own career, I have seen the good, the bad, and the almost comically outrageous when it comes to the interpreter depos I have witnessed.

I have had my audio subpoenaed so that opposing counsel can then have their own interpreter do their own interpretation. I have had interpreters give their rendition in third person, which makes for an almost unreadable transcript where no one is completely certain who is speaking, the interpreter or the witness. I have been instructed to swear in a family member of the witness to act as the interpreter. I have heard a witness speak in their native language for at least a minute and then see the absolute look of confusion on the faces of everyone in the room when the interpreter says only “Yes, I was.”

Every problem in the above paragraph was the direct result of hiring an interpreter who is not trained in litigation or judicial interpreting. By working exclusively with Supreme Court Certified Judicial Interpreters, these and other roadblocks in due process can be avoided completely.

On January 1, 2013, Ohio Supreme Court Rule 88 took effect in an attempt to provide language access services that comply with Constitutional guarantees and with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (1964), making Ohio one of many State Supreme Courts that certify interpreters to work in all aspects of our criminal justice system and all proceedings in civil litigation. Cleveland Reporting Partners recently had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Roxane King, a Cleveland-based Supreme Court Certified Judicial Spanish Interpreter, to learn all about her training, education, her practice, and just about everything else you would need to know to ensure you are always hiring the right person whenever you are in need of an interpreter for a deposition or trial.

The following interview was taken down in realtime by Grace Hilpert-Roach, co-founder of CRP and our most senior court reporter.

THE ROXANE KING INTERVIEW

TODD PERSSON: Roxane, thank you for meeting with us this morning. We appreciate you coming in and talking to us.

ROXANE KING: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

TP: Absolutely. So you are a Supreme Court Certified Interpreter?

RK: Yes. For the Ohio Supreme Court and the Superior Court of California.

TP: And what is the role of a Supreme Court Certified Interpreter?

RK: The role and duty of the interpreter is to act as a medium between the court and the non-English speaking person. The interpreter is required to transfer all meaning he or she hears from the source language into the target language without editing, summarizing, neither adding nor omitting content or meaning. The court interpreter is a language mediator who, through interpretation, allows the defendant or plaintiff to be linguistically and cognitively present in a legal setting and proceeding.

TP: What is the training and education involved with becoming a Supreme Court Certified Interpreter?

RK: Certified interpreters undergo extensive training and education. We are taught a breadth of legal terminology and various techniques to be mastered, such as the simultaneous, consecutive and legal sight translation techniques. All three must be mastered and learned to precision in order to become certified.

TP: And what is the testing involved?

RK: The Supreme Court of Ohio administers the testing required for certification. There are two phases to the testing. The first phase is a written examination, which includes areas of complex legal terminology, court language, and professional ethics and canons. The examinee must pass all areas of the test in order to move on to the next phase. Approximately six months after passing the written portion of the test, the examinee takes part in the oral exam. The oral exam consists of demonstrating oral proficiency in simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, as well as legal sight translation in both languages. A successful candidate must pass both the written and the oral portions of the examination.

There are three levels of certification; Certified, Provisional and Registered. The national passing rate is 20 percent, and the passing rate in Ohio is 18 percent, mainly due to the fact there are not any training schools or university programs in judicial interpreting in the state.

TP: What is simultaneous interpreting?

RK: The task of simultaneous interpreting is extremely complex. Though simultaneous listening and speaking rarely occurs in everyday verbal behavior, we not only are able to listen and speak simultaneously for reasonable lengths of time, but also to carry out complex transformations on the source language message while uttering the interpretation in the target language. Every single word that is being said in the courtroom or deposition is being said in the target language without stopping or summarizing.

TP: What is consecutive interpreting?

RK: Consecutive interpreting is used in a question and answer format to the witness. The interpreter retains large amounts of information through symbol note-taking techniques and then renders the answer or question without omissions or embellishments. It involves complex mental tasks of language perception, storage, retrieval and generation. Because of this complexity, many interpreters consider consecutive interpreting more difficult than simultaneous. It’s perhaps the most challenging of all types of interpretation.

TP: And what is legal sight translation?

RK: It is translating and subsequently on-the-spot interpreting of legal documents on the record.

TP: So why the need for certification when it comes to interpreting in the legal arena?

RK: Well, first and foremost, it is the law. Certified judicial interpreters ensure the highest quality of interpretation. Professional judicial interpreting is provided to assist the court in overcoming the linguistic barrier in the administration of justice in carrying out due process for non-English speaking parties and/or individuals not fluent in English.

TP: Does this tie into Rule 88?

RK: Absolutely. The Supreme Court of Ohio adopted Rule 88. It took effect January 1, 2013 in an attempt to provide language access services that comply with not only Constitutional guarantees, but also with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and some of the other regulations that the Department of Justice has established for language access services in cases with individuals with limited English proficiency.

CHRISTINE GREEN: What is the difference between a Certified Judicial Interpreter and an ad hoc bilingual acting interpreter?

RK: An ad hoc acting bilingual is a person who was either born overseas where they learned the language, or a person who was raised in the United States and spoke that second language at home. Certified Judicial Interpreters have a high expert proficiency in their specialized language. This is a profession, it’s a skilled profession. A Certified Judicial Interpreter is an interpreter who has passed a valid and reliable certification exam administered by the Supreme Court of Ohio. Certified Judicial Interpreters are also mandated by the Supreme Court to maintain our continuing education credits.

CG: What are the major advantages of hiring a Certified Judicial Interpreter over a traditional ad hoc bilingual in court proceedings, including depositions?

RK: As Judicial Certified Interpreters and impartial officers of the court, it is our duty and ethical obligation to protect the record, bound and under oath as neutral parties. As such, we adhere to all ethical standards and maintain the highest quality of personal and professional conduct. Certified Judicial Interpreters are highly-skilled and disciplined members of a challenging profession and are dedicated to public service as we strive to promote public confidence in the administration of justice.

Conversely, an ad hoc acting bilingual interpreter has no interpreter training. He or she will not know the proper techniques or standards. Additionally, if the interpreter has no judicial training or ethics instruction, they will not be familiar with the vast amount of legal terminology and ethical obligations to the court. As a result, a proceeding interpreted by an ad hoc bilingual interpreter can be stricken from the record and not reviewable by higher courts.

Without a competent interpreter that is capable of facilitating the complete and accurate flow of information, vital information may not be included, the drawing of facts will get twisted, misunderstanding may be frequent, and most importantly, justice may be denied.

In criminal cases, defendants cannot be meaningfully present nor linguistically present to be able to assist in their own defense, receive the effective assistance of counsel, confront witnesses or waive any of their rights knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily. Only with competent interpreting and translation will non-English speakers have access to justice, due process, fundamental fairness and equal protection of law. Certified interpreters are the stamp of approval from the Supreme Court.

CG: What sort of documentation do you provide to show that you’re a Certified Judicial Interpreter?

RK: Our second canon is representation of qualifications. Certified Judicial Interpreters identify themselves on the record, either in court or at depositions, by stating their names, language of proficiency, and Supreme Court identification number.

TP: And you were sworn in with your certification?

RK: Yes. All Supreme Court Judicial Interpreters are sworn in.

TP: We just talked about ad hoc bilinguals and the differences between Certified Judicial Interpreters. Is there a different type of interpretation that maybe bilinguals are more used to, such as in a business setting or in a meeting, as opposed to what you do? I think the word is “seriatim” interpretation, as opposed to other forms of interpretation. Can you explain a little bit about that?

RK: Well, a bilingual interpreter – as I said, to be a well-rounded interpreter, you have to be able to master the court language and also the legal language when in the proceeding itself, following the rules of professional ethics and the canons of the Supreme Court.

So just the fact that you’re a bilingual doesn’t justify the fact that you can go in and say “I’m bilingual, so I can interpret exactly and precisely for that record.” The record would then be unreliable, unreviewable and, therefore, it would jeopardize the integrity of the hearing and due process.

TP: One of the articles that you included for us to read before we met with you talked about how traditional bilinguals in the business setting will not necessarily interpret verbatim, but they will give a gist of what’s being said, or summarize, and that may be fine or accepted in the business setting. But as a Certified Judicial Interpreter, you are trained in verbatim interpreting?

RK: Judicial interpreters are trained to deliver every element of meaning, including paralinguistic features such as audible gestures, pauses, nuances and word connotations without changing, adding, omitting, or summarizing. Therefore, we do not give a gist or summarize what is being said but rather deliver the complete element of meaning in the whole message exactly and precisely for the record. We interpret all testimony in the first person and are only permitted to speak in the third person when addressing the court or counsel. When rendering witness testimony especially, we must maintain the same demeanor, register and language of the speaker.

TP: As a sworn-in Supreme Court Certified Judicial Interpreter, you mentioned some canons. What are the canons and/or Acts that you are duty-bound to?

RK: Supreme Court Certified Interpreters are bound to the standards for performance and professional responsibility by the Supreme Court of Ohio to do the following, and these are our canons:

1) Accuracy and completeness.

2) Proficiency.

3) Representation of qualifications.

4) Impartiality, conflicts of interest, and remuneration and gifts. We are impartial and unbiased, and we refrain from conduct that may give an appearance of bias. We cannot converse with parties, witnesses, jurors, attorneys, or friends or relatives of any party, except in the discharge of official functions.

5) Professional demeanor and high standards of conduct.

6) Confidentiality.

7) Restriction of public comment. We cannot discuss publicly, report, or offer any opinion concerning a matter.

8) Scope of practice. We have to limit ourselves to interpreting and may not engage in any other activities which may be construed to constitute a service other than interpreting.

9) Assessing and reporting impediments to performance.

10)The duty to report ethical violations.

CG: As court reporters, we have worked with many interpreters in depositions over our many years of experience. We oftentimes see that interpretations of witness testimony are challenged, and either our audio will be requested or subpoenaed by counsel or the deposition will need to be taken again using a different interpreter. As a Certified Judicial Interpreter with all your training, education and testing by the Supreme Courts of Ohio and California, is your interpretation less likely to be challenged in contentious cases?

RK: Absolutely. Certified interpreters are the stamp of approval of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Conversely, if the client wants to challenge an interpretation made by someone other than a Certified Judicial Interpreter, we can provide expert testimony as to discrepancies, deficiencies or irregularities.

TP: What are the responsibilities during court proceedings involving judicial bilingual interpretation when you notice an irregularity in the interpretation? Can interpreters be experts?

RK: Judicial interpreters are in a unique position because we can be considered both experts and impartial officers of the court at the same time. There are several ways of looking at this situation. One, accept the common practice of treating the interpreter as an officer of the court until there is a challenge to an interpretation; then, the interpreter switches roles and becomes an expert witness. Challenging counsel may then voir dire and offer a different version of the interpretation in dispute. In that case, the interpreter, as an impartial officer of the court, can either stand by her interpretation as an expert witness and officer, or request a repetition of the record to validate or invalidate her interpretation.

An option in determining linguistic issues is to treat the judicial interpreter as an expert from the beginning of the proceeding and have it recorded on the record. Therefore, the court as well as counsel can challenge the interpreter’s expertise if problems arise later in the discovery or trial. In fact, Rule 604 of the Federal Rules of Evidence states, “The Interpreter shall be qualified as an expert.”

TP: We have also seen from time to time family members or friends of the family, or sometimes even attorneys who may be bilingual interrupt in a deposition when they believe an interpreter’s rendition of testimony is not accurate. As a Certified Judicial Interpreter, can you speak to the appropriateness of this in a deposition or trial setting?

RK: Well, I’m definitely not a lawyer, but I can tell you what I’ve observed in the past. The attorney, while performing the duties of an interpreter or questioning the rendition on the spot cannot at the same time effectively represent the legal interest of a defendant or plaintiff. A judicial interpreter carries out a linguistic analysis. An attorney listens, takes notes and undertakes a legal analysis, including evaluating opposing counsel’s evidence, formulating new questions, highlighting or diminishing a fact and gathering more information to support or counter an argument.

As for family and friends of witnesses trying to participate in a deposition; this is not prudent and may violate Supreme Court Rules and jurisprudence. Not only will this have a blatant effect on the testimony of the witness, but the delivery of due process could be forfeited.

TP: Are you permitted to interpret an audio recording on the spot?

RK: Our first canon is accuracy and completeness. If a judicial interpreter is asked to interpret an audio or sound recording on the spot, he or she is automatically not complying with canon number one. Remember, we have taken an oath to follow and comply with our professional canons.

The quality of audio recordings changes constantly depending on the circumstances or conditions. There can be a great deal of noise, various people speaking loudly at the same time or not clearly. For all the above mentioned, a judicial interpreter cannot comply with accuracy and completeness interpreting an audio recording on the spot.

In these cases, a judicial interpreter must have the prior prepared transcript of the English and foreign language version in hand to be able to render an accurate and complete rendition. On the contrary, the record is jeopardized, as is the defendant’s and/or plaintiff’s right to due process. If a transcript and translation is not provided and the judicial interpreter is asked to continue, then he or she must recuse herself from the case, obviously explaining on the record her reasoning to do so. The judicial interpreter on the case cannot translate the foreign language section of the audio recording on the spot because that would make him or her a potential witness. Recordings must be done by a Certified Judicial Interpreter or translator who has nothing to do with the case, then certified and notarized prior to the hearing or deposition.

TP: Let me ask you this; how is a day in the life of a judicial interpreter?

RK: I can tell you there is never one boring day or a repetitive day, that’s for sure. I can walk you through a day in the life of a trial from beginning to end as briefly as possible.

Trial execution starts the moment you are assigned to a trial. The team of interpreters choose a lead interpreter that is “the voice” of the team. He or she will play the part of speaking to the judge, bailiff and lawyers when needed on behalf of the team. The lead interpreter requests all possible material that can be given to the team for viewing. Police reports, forensic reports, audio transcripts and expert witnesses that will testify have extensive resumes and reports that are complicated in meaning. Of course, all of this information is confidential, and we are under oath to treat it as such. We must gather as much information as possible to commence the creation of our glossaries with the help of our reference guides for the day of the trial. This process can take from 4 to 12 hours or even more. As the day approaches, we gather various times as a team and continue preparing and memorizing vocabulary so we are all on the same page.

On the day of the trial, we have an interpreter station set up where we allocate a table for the team in the best sound area of the courtroom, which is difficult. We check interpreter audio equipment. We validate dialect and understanding, train plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers on how we work. In court, during trial, we provide constant simultaneous and consecutive interpreting along with team huddles and updates to the judge for accuracy.

We execute interpreter rotation every 25 to 30 minutes to avoid interpreter fatigue. When an interpreter isn’t “on air,” he or she is shadowing their team partner to ensure accuracy and assist in any element of meaning that can arise and must be introduced immediately by the help of “resting and shadowing” interpreter to “on the air” interpreter. At the end of the day, we turn in all notes taken and glossaries to the bailiff for safekeeping.

TP: What is interpreter’s fatigue and why team interpreting?

RK: Interpreters must work in teams of two or more in all hearings or trials that last more than two hours. This is done because interpreter fatigue is a significant consideration. Consecutive and simultaneous interpreting are very mentally taxing. We are under a great deal of pressure to retain every single element of the source language, and we must rely primarily on memory and note-taking. This leads to a cognitive overload. Most people do not realize that interpreters use at least 22 cognitive skills when interpreting.

Additionally, the interpreters must work through noises constantly arising in the courtroom, such as jurors coughing, doors opening, etc. After 30 minutes, the accuracy decreases, which is scientifically proven, and the interpreter’s mind is too tired to evaluate their own performance. Again, we have a duty to interpret accurately and faithfully and to perform to the best of our ability to assure due process. Interpreters are expected to comply with their canons and need the full support of administrators who will place due process considerations first over any budgetary constraints. Therefore, team interpreting is key to protect the record

TP: Do Certified Interpreters have any role post judgment, appeals or otherwise?

RK: Yes. There are many instances under which a Supreme Court Certified Interpreter’s services can be used post judgment. For example, criminal cases during Post-Convictions Relief motions. A Supreme Court Certified Interpreter can provide new evidence with a reliable interpretation. Furthermore, in both civil and criminal appeals, certified interpreters can provide reliable interpretation to supplement the record for review. Certified interpreters have a role in many different types of post judgment issues.

TP: We had a chance to look at your website before meeting with you. One of the guiding principles of your company, Certified Interpreters United, is innovation. Can you describe what technology you implement in your interpretations that aid in your accuracy and presentation and delivery that Ohio litigators may not be aware of?

RK: We use the most advanced and innovative audio-technical and digital equipment for premium quality audio. This approach to complex trials helps guarantee efficiency and quality in our delivery. It’s important because it maintains a record of what is said on the record that is exact, precise and correct, and we are able to get back to it, and the parties can determine if a possible error has been made. Through the use of this technology, it’s done faster and all the information is covered.

TP: What is the actual technology? Is it a recording device?

RK: It’s a recording device that actually records what is being said by all parties, by the interpreter and by the individual speaking, the main speaker. So the court, all parties and the interpreter can go back and listen to the rendition and the questions being asked or the conversation that’s being held.

TP: And if you went back and listened, would the proceeding be paused while you did that?

RK: In California, for example, it’s connected to the DAR system, which is the court’s audio system, and it’s actually connected to the record. So the interpreter’s voice is constantly being heard on the judge’s record and recorded.

So if a question ever occurs where there’s a misinterpretation and they want to determine if it’s a basis for appeal, then they can go back and listen to it. It’s then heard by a senior interpreter who has nothing to do with the case that’s been recorded on the record.

Once that’s heard, then it’s determined if an appeal is carried out or not. And that could be detrimental, because if there’s a misinterpretation and it was not recorded, then perhaps the trial would have to be reheard. In the long run, this affects everyone, including the taxpayers. If a court proceeding or deposition were carried out the right way from the beginning using Judicial Interpreters that have been trained and certified, then the record is sure to be protected and less mistakes are to be made and, therefore, less appeals filed.

CG: You mentioned the DAR system that the California court system has. Does Ohio have such a system in place as well?

RK: I’ve been told that the interpreter’s rendition is not connected to the judge’s recorded system where they can actually have the recording of the interpreter’s rendition on the judge’s record. What I do know is that the majority of our renditions are picked up by the microphones in the room. That is not exact and precise, because in the simultaneous mode, for example, we’re whispering, so a lot of the rendition is not picked up by those microphones.

CG: Would realtime services by a court reporter aid in your interpretation in a deposition or trial setting? Have you ever worked with a realtime court reporter before?

RK: First of all, interpreters and court reporters have a very similar role. We both must ensure that the record is exact and precise. I think realtime is an excellent tool that could definitely be an additional screening of a judicial interpreter’s rendition on the record due to the fact that not only are we listening, but we would also be able to read what is being said in the courtroom or deposition in real time.

TP: So it would take some of the pressure off of the retention?

RK: Exactly. Therefore, making sure the record is correct and precise.

CG: Now that we know more about what you do, when did you decide to come to Ohio from California to start Certified Interpreters United?

RK: I came to Ohio two-and-a-half years ago from California. And based on all my training and experience that I was fortunate to acquire in California, I found that bringing it to the Ohio courts and implementing it, along with my colleagues, would be very beneficial for the Ohio judicial system.

TP: In addition to being CEO and President of Certified Interpreters United, are you also a member of any professional organizations here in Ohio?

RK: Yes, I am. The Community and Court Interpreters of Ohio.

TP: What does that organization do?

RK: It’s a professional organization of certified individuals, and also non-certified individuals who are in the process of training and testing and finally certification. We gather as a support group within our profession. We attend workshops that give certified interpreters additional continuing education credits. My colleagues put workshops together as well where I have participated. I am also on the advocacy committee for NAJIT, the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators.

TP: So Certified Interpreters United, or CIU, works with subcontractors all over the state who are also judicial interpreters. Did you grow your network that you – how should I word this –

CG: Are the individuals that provide these services with you and for CIU contracted through your network that you have in Ohio? Is that what you meant, Todd?

TP: Yes. Thanks, Christine.

RK: All these individuals are independent contractors. There is a roster of certified interpreters on the Ohio Supreme Court website.

TP: And just about any language you can cover?

RK: Yes. Now, when there isn’t a certified interpreter on the roster and a language is required, like Korean, for example, I find a language-skilled that has at least 80 hours of court shadowing, Supreme Court workshops on judicial interpreting and professional cannons and ethics. Because of the lack of – I mean, they are still in the process of certifying many languages.

TP: I understand you’ve been awarded a contract for court work in Cuyahoga County for judicial interpreting services. What was involved with getting that contract, and for which court are you now providing services?

RK: I’m now providing language services for Common Pleas, Justice Center, General Division, Juvenile Court, Probate Court and Domestic Relations Court. I presented a bid for proposal, and actually I believe that I won this bid because I was able to depict trial execution and what the judicial interpreter’s profession is all about, and how we work and how we can serve the courts and deliver high quality, professional and personal service to the courts in assisting them in carrying out due process for non-English speaking people.

TP: Roxane, thank you so much for meeting with us today. That was great. So much information in here that I never even thought about, and I hope will be helpful to litigators in Ohio who find themselves in need of a Supreme Court Certified Judicial Interpreter for a deposition, or anything.

RK: Absolutely.

CG: Yes. Thank you so much, Roxane. I know we will be hiring only Certified Judicial Interpreters when our clients need an interpreter for our jobs.

RK: Oh, that’s so wonderful. Thank you. And let’s not forget to thank Grace, who has been sitting over here taking everything we’ve said today down. That’s such a crazy skill. It was a pleasure meeting you guys, and thanks for inviting me here for this interview.

POST INTERVIEW THOUGHTS

There are many spokes in the wheel that keep the American justice system rolling; law enforcement, judges, magistrates, attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, court reporters, videographers, docket clerks, interpreters, filing clerks…and on and on. It’s a very complex wheel, for sure. When any of these spokes are not functioning properly, the integrity of the wheel breaks down. When enough of these spokes are compromised, the entire wheel collapses, bringing the justice system that we all depend on to a crashing halt, creating a roadblock too large for due process to bypass.

This may seem like a very dramatic metaphor, but my time spent over the past few weeks with Roxane putting together this article made me realize that in every aspect of our justice system there is a professional there to do their job, to act on behalf of the court with the integrity of the court itself. She made me think outside of my own demographic, my own comfortable place in this world where I don’t have to worry about my voice not being heard or my thoughts being misinterpreted by someone without the proper training.

That’s what we’re talking about, right? Due process. Because of professionals like Roxane, with the proper training in legal interpretation, non-English speaking individuals can enjoy the same rights and voice we all do when we may find ourselves suddenly entangled in the extremely complicated web of the American justice system. To not speak fluently in English should never be the equivalent of giving opposing counsel an advantage, or having a jury confused and frustrated to the point of indifference or unwarranted contempt.

It is so apparent to me after spending time with Roxane that she is very passionate about her craft and a truly wonderful person to talk to and be around. But perhaps more importantly, she is an extremely valuable advocate for the due process of those who are so reliant on her talents and dedication, those who need the help of her and others similarly educated to be their voice.

Helpful Links:

Certified Interpreters United

Supreme Court of Ohio Rule 88

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act

Federal Rule of Evidence 604

National Association of Judiciary Interpreters & Translators

Ohio Supreme Court Roster of Certified Judicial Interpreters

About the Author:

Todd L. Persson has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2002 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland-based litigation support firm Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. He has spoken on the future of court reporting and technology on the Stenographers World Radio national podcast, has had blogs featured nationally by the National Court Reporters Association and the American Translators Association, and has contributed content to the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Journal. To read Todd’s full bio, visit our Partners page. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

Contributors:

Grace Hilpert-Roach has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 1992 and is a co-founder of Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. To read Grace’s full bio, visit our Partners Page. Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Christine Zarife Green has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2008 and is a co-founder of Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. To read Christine’s full bio, visit our Partners Page. Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Roxane J. King is a Superior Court of California and Ohio Supreme Court Certified Judicial Spanish Interpreter and owner and President of Certified Interpreters United. Read her full bio here. Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

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Cleveland Reporting Partners Celebrates One-Year Anniversary

01 Mar 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Legal Technology, Litigation Support, Paralegals

As the 2017 calendar flipped from February to March this morning and meteorological spring in Northeast Ohio begins, Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC is so proud to celebrate our official one-year anniversary! It seems like only yesterday we were signing a lease on our office space and buying furniture, but it really has been an incredibly productive year filled with interesting challenges, momentous breakthroughs and, above all else, sustained growth and expansion in every aspect of our business.

We would like to personally thank all our clients and litigation support affiliates for their invaluable support, encouragement and input that allowed us to grow and evolve into the company we are now just one short year into our operations.

We started with a vision of something different for the Cleveland legal community with a company mantra and philosophy that would be forever fluid and dynamic, never static, improving every day as the needs of our clients shift or completely change. Our intent was never to build a company that is yet another iteration of older models that already exist, but to explore and create new solutions to litigation challenges with a focus on efficiency and client demands. As such, our business model was created from the perspective of a litigator, and we imagined what we would expect from the litigation support we would want to work with. This approach allows us to see our own business from the outside looking in and gives us a working clarity when identifying new solutions to complex issues that arise day in and day out in discovery.

As our existing clients have already found out about us: When you are working with Cleveland Reporting Partners, you are working with a litigation and discovery support partner and consultant…NOT just another vendor. CRP cares about the Cleveland legal community, we care about Cleveland as a whole, and we always strive to create the highest value to our clients in all the products and services we provide. We have enjoyed several client reviews that speak to this, and we’d invite you to read them at your leisure.

Again, thank you to everyone who has helped us improve and grow in our first year, and we look forward to seeing you out in the field in 2017!

Sincerely and gratefully,

CRP Co-Founders and Partners – Grace Hilpert-Roach, Christine Zarife Green and Todd L. Persson

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Cleveland Reporting Partners Launches Modern Online Client Office

11 Jan 2017, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Legal Technology, Litigation Support

To start off 2017 with a bang, Cleveland Reporting Partners proudly introduces CRP Direct, our online client office and repository. After researching existing repository platforms available in our industry, we quickly realized that there could be something better, something simpler, with a modern user interface that would be ultra-responsive and functional across all devices and all browsers.

So we started from scratch by first getting input from attorneys, paralegals and legal assistants on what works and what doesn’t, what makes sense and what is redundant or unnecessary, and then partnered with one of the most trusted and secure cloud storage and file sharing companies on the planet to bring CRP Direct to life.

Since CRP was founded upon the philosophy of simplicity and efficiency, we knew our online client office should mirror our overall company culture. Once logged in, any job folder or file is literally two clicks away by utilizing our sophisticated search bar. But the feature of CRP Direct that will really stand out is the ability to stream all your video depositions without downloading. Lengthy digital video deposition files can be as large as 80GB, so downloading is not an option on most tablets or mobile devices. But with CRP Direct video streaming capabilities, you can watch your videos anywhere, on any device, utilizing zero memory space.

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Digital Signatures: Protecting the Data Integrity of Electronic Transcripts

04 Nov 2016, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Digital Signatures, Legal Technology, Litigation Support

When we talk about digitally signed documents (or transcripts), we are talking about much more than just an electronic image of a signature; and a lot of times an electronic image of a signature that is pasted onto a document is mistakenly taken for a valid digital signature. If you’re confused already, you’re not alone.

“Electronic signatures” and “digital signatures” are terms that oftentimes are used interchangeably but in reality are very different. In today’s legal industry, where hardcopy transcripts are extremely rare and electronic transcripts have replaced them as the standard, it is crucial to understand and recognize the difference to be absolutely certain that the data integrity of the transcripts you receive from your court reporter has not been compromised.

ELECTRONIC VS. DIGITAL SIGNATURES

ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES: An electronic signature is an image of a signature, most often a .jpg, that is inserted or pasted onto a document on a signature line to give the appearance that a document has been signed. Anyone with a camera phone can take a picture of a person’s signature and then paste this image onto any document. Because of this, as you may have guessed, there is no validity to this signature on electronic documents whatsoever. It is purely cosmetic, and in no way makes a document official or binding.

DIGITAL SIGNATURES: A digital signature is a cryptographic layer of validation and security that is applied to a document to ensure the document’s authentication and integrity. When a person applies his or her digital signature to a document, the receiver can be certain that the entire document was created by the owner of the digital signature, and that no part of the document was altered in any way in transit. The digital signature key will provide a time stamp as to when the document was signed and encrypts the document so that it cannot be altered. Now, a digital signature may have an element of an electronic signature in that a cosmetic image of the signer’s signature may be placed upon a signature line, the difference being that that electronic signature’s validity is backed up by the digital signature key that encrypts the document.

An easy way to think about this is to use the analogy of US currency. When the Federal Reserve prints paper money, meaning and value is only given to this currency if it is represented that the paper money is backed by gold or silver reserves. When currency is printed without the backing of the precious metals, it loses its value and basically becomes meaningless. So you can look at an electronic signature with no digital encryption as being analogous to counterfeit currency; having no validity, value or meaning.

DIGITAL SIGNATURES AND ELECTRONIC TRANSCRIPTS

Now that you understand the difference between electronic and digital signatures, it is important to understand how this applies to the certified electronic deposition or trial transcripts you receive from your court reporter. Now, your court reporter or reporting firm should be sending you several file formats for your use for copying and pasting to aid in your work product, but at least one of the files you receive should be encrypted and meet the following characteristics of data integrity and authentication.

The digital signature footprint should be easily accessible and visible with a simple click of the mouse. In the example below, by clicking anywhere on the certificate page of the transcript, a dialogue box appears providing a time stamp of when the transcript was signed, and the name of the owner of the signature key should appear.

The digital signature footprint should be verifiable with another click. After clicking on the “Verify Signature” box in the example above, a second dialogue box appears, providing a second layer of data protection and authenticity.

In the two images above, you can see that the cosmetic electronic signature’s validity is backed by the digital signature footprint dialogue boxes, verifying the authenticity and data integrity of the entire document.

THE PEACE OF MIND OF DATA INTEGRITY

One of the most critical aspects of discovery in any case is testimony, and it is the responsibility of your court reporter to capture and preserve the testimony. However, in today’s digital world, it is also critical for your court reporter to encrypt the electronic transcripts you purchase from them and validate the authenticity and integrity of the transcripts to ensure that the testimony has not been tampered with. Therefore, make sure you are working with court reporters and court reporting firms who digitally sign their certificate pages to give you the peace of mind that the testimony elicited in discovery is without a doubt preserved and protected.

In another article, we discuss 9 attributes of exceptional court reporters in 2016.

About the Author:

Todd L. Persson has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2002 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland-based litigation support firm Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. He has spoken on the future of court reporting and technology on the Stenographers World Radio national podcast, has had blogs featured nationally by the National Court Reporters Association and the American Translators Association, and has contributed content to the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Journal. To read Todd’s full bio, visit our Partners page. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

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Getting the Most Out of E-Transcripts Without a Westlaw Subscription

20 Sep 2016, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Attorneys, Court Reporting, Paralegals

When you purchase trial or deposition transcripts from your court reporter, you are making an investment in your case and spending more of your clients’ money to assist you in preparing and presenting your best arguments. Getting the right transcript format (and getting the most out of that format) can actually save you a significant amount of time, lowering the overall cost of litigation.

The days of leafing through hundreds of pages of hardcopy transcripts are long gone, as are the days of having to cut and paste from an ASCII file into a Word document when preparing deposition summaries. Today, most court reporters and court reporting firms offer e-Transcripts (.ptx), and they are by far the most preferred format for successful, experienced litigators due to their unmatched functionality. Some of the most time-saving functions of an e-Transcript are:

Hyperlinked word index to easily search through the entire transcript
Ability to highlight and annotate within the body of the transcript
Organize your notes and annotations in one convenient place and access your notes with a simple click

Here’s the catch. Without a costly subscription to Westlaw’s Case Notebook software, you won’t be able to do any of these things with the e-Transcripts your court reporter sends you, and probably won’t even be able to open the file. But here’s the good news. There are a couple ways to get some or all functionality out of your e-Transcripts without any subscription whatsoever.

3 Ways to Get the Most Out of E-Transcripts Without a Westlaw Subscription:

Download the free E-Transcript Bundle Viewer from Thomas Reuters Westlaw. By downloading this free, read-only viewer, you can take advantage of the hyperlink word index function of an e-Transcript. While this will not unlock the ability to annotate, highlight and organize your notes, having a click-searchable word index at your fingertips will save you hours searching through lengthy transcripts for critical passages. Furthermore, if you are in a week of depositions or arbitration that requires rough drafts every night in order to prep for the next day, ask your court reporter to send you the rough drafts in e-Transcript format, and use this read-only viewer to expedite your searches and make the most of the limited hours you have to prep for the next day. Download the free E-Transcript Bundle Viewer.
Westlaw Case Notebook Portable E-Transcript app for iPad and iPhone. Westlaw offers a free, full-functionality e-Transcript app for iPad and iPhone. By going to the App Store and getting the Westlaw Case Notebook Portable E-Transcript app, you can easily import the e-Transcripts your court reporter sends you and immediately start annotating, highlighting, and organizing your notes using your touchscreen or Bluetooth keyboard or mouse. This is by far the best of the free options for getting the most of your e-Transcripts without a paid subscription, the only downside being that it is only offered on Apple mobile devices. But if you don’t mind working on tablets, this might be the most cost-effective way to go, and the cost of an iPad is far, far less than a full paid subscription to Westlaw Case Notebook. This may also be an ideal way to go if you are unsure if you want to splurge for the subscription to Case Notebook and want to try it out first to see if you benefit from full e-Transcript functionality, or if you are a paralegal who wants to greatly reduce the time involved in creating a deposition summary.
Ask your court reporter. If you’ve tried the two methods above and are still having difficulty navigating through your e-Transcript file, simply ask your court reporter or court reporting firm to assist you. Knowledgeable reporters and firms will be happy to help you get the most out of the transcripts you have purchased from them.

Whether you’re a seasoned litigator who is looking for ways to reduce the time spent tirelessly thumbing through thousands of pages of deposition transcripts or a paralegal preparing deposition summaries, finding the transcript format that best suits your needs is invaluable and will save you, your firm, and your clients unnecessary costs of complex litigation.

In another article, we discuss 9 attributes of exceptional court reporters in 2016.

About the Author:

Todd L. Persson has been serving the Cleveland legal community as a court reporter since 2002 and is a Co-Founder of Cleveland-based litigation support firm Cleveland Reporting Partners, LLC. He has spoken on the future of court reporting and technology on the Stenographers World Radio national podcast, has had blogs featured nationally by the National Court Reporters Association and the American Translators Association, and has contributed content to the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Journal. To read Todd’s full bio, visit our Partners page. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

CRP Blog Editors in Chief:

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What You Should Expect From Your Court Reporter

31 Aug 2016, Posted by Cleveland Reporting Partners in Court Reporting

In today’s ultra-competitive litigation support industry, it has become increasingly challenging to find a court reporter and court reporting firm that mirror your progressive, modern litigation philosophy. From the large national court reporting firms that now have a presence in just about every major metropolitan area, to the familiar firms in your local market, almost all will boast the old taglines of “speed,” “accuracy,” “timeliness,” “professionalism,” and probably a dozen or so other predictable marketing descriptors you’ve seen for decades. The fact of the matter is, they all more often than not will produce very accurate and timely transcripts. However, you should be expecting so much more from your court reporter. There are several other attributes of a truly exceptional court reporter and reporting firm that will make them stand out from the rest and give you the confidence that you have hired an invaluable litigation support partner.

9 Attributes of Exceptional Court Reporters:

1) USE AND MASTERY OF CURRENT COURT REPORTING TECHNOLOGY:

An exceptional court reporter uses computer-aided transcription software at all times and will have his or her laptop with them at all proceedings. This is critical in the arena of efficiency and expediency, as during breaks and lunch, you should see your reporter already editing the transcript. They also use AudioSync technology and will edit transcripts line by line against their audio. This is not an indication of inferior talent, as a truly professional court reporter will use whatever technology available in addition to their talent to ensure 100 percent accurate transcripts, and to not use this technology is irresponsible and a serious red flag that a reporter is not keeping up with the technology in the field. If you don’t already know what AudioSync technology is, ask your reporter the next time you see them on a job, and they should be happy to give you a simple, two-minute demonstration.

2) THE SILENT OBSERVER IN THE ROOM:

An exceptional court reporter will try to be as invisible as possible during a proceeding and will only interrupt in very limited circumstances. If a reporter has done their job properly and effectively, you will forget they are there until the proceeding is concluded and orders are discussed. Furthermore, your court reporter should only speak up during a proceeding if he or she can literally not hear a soft-spoken witness. And chances are, if the reporter can’t hear the witness, one of the attorneys can’t either, and will usually speak up before the reporter has a chance to.

3) FOCUS AND ENDURANCE:

An exceptional court reporter will never be the one to ask to go off the record for a break. They understand that you have a method and a flow to your questioning, and they realize that most attorneys or witnesses will usually break between an hour and two hours anyway. You will always remember a reporter who is constantly asking for breaks, interrupting your flow; and you will definitely remember how different it is working with reporters who take pride in their endurance, respecting the fact that they are working on your time.

4) RESOURCEFULNESS:

An exceptional court reporter will never ask for spellings while on the record. The appropriate time for spelling questions are at breaks or after the proceeding. Furthermore, spellings of industry terms, streets, towns, cities, colleges, etc., that are easily found using Google or other search engines (or on exhibits that they will have in their possession after the deposition) should not be asked at all. Asking you or the witness for this type of information is basically using your time to do the easy research that a professional reporter should know how to do on their own. This can prove quite detrimental if the time your court reporter is using to ask spelling questions causes the expert witness you are deposing to go into another hour of very costly billing.

5) KNOWING HOW TO HANDLE MULTIPLE SPEAKERS AT ONCE:

An exceptional court reporter will rarely interrupt while on the record to ask people in the room to speak one at a time. It can be difficult to create an easily readable transcript when people speak over one another during a deposition. An appropriate way to handle this is to briefly say to the questioning attorney at a break that the testimony is getting conversational, reminding the attorney how stacked, staggered and broken up the transcript will look, and to kindly ask counsel to remind the witness before going back on the record to wait until he or she finishes the question before they answer. A reporter who is constantly interrupting on the record is giving the impression that they are not capturing all of the testimony, and is breaking the flow of an attorney’s questioning. It may also be a strategy of an attorney to talk over a witness, and if opposing counsel is not objecting, it is not the place of a court reporter to object for them, so to speak.

6) FIRST ONE IN, LAST ONE OUT:

An exceptional court reporter will be the first to arrive at a proceeding and the last to leave. He or she will never complain about a deposition that goes past 5:00, or well into the night, for that matter.

7) NEVER MISSING A DEADLINE:

An exceptional court reporter will always answer the question “How soon can I get the transcript?” with “Whenever you need it.” No exceptions, even if it means staying up all night after a nine-hour deposition to get the final in your hands first thing the next morning. Remember, your court reporter is working for you, and you should always expect your reporter to deliver no matter how demanding the time constraints.

8) EXTREMELY CLEAN ROUGH DRAFTS:

The days of barely readable “dirty ASCIIs” are long gone. As technology in court reporting has evolved, so too has the ability of a court reporter to be incredibly accurate immediately. An exceptional court reporter will produce all rough drafts that you order within a few hours of going off the record, and the quicker the better. The reporter should be using breaks to clean up steno and check fuzzy parts in the transcript so that by the end, a very clean, extremely helpful and readable rough draft should not take very long.

9) DIRECT COMMUNICATION:

Finally, and maybe the most important, you should have the ability to have direct contact with the court reporter on your case. Communication with your court reporter should be as streamlined as possible. You may need to reach them when:

You have a question regarding delivery time.
Realize you need a rough draft and the deposition ended hours ago.
Maybe it’s the weekend and you forgot to order a transcript.
You need to get an excerpt of a final transcript to help you prepare for your next witness.

You shouldn’t have to go through many confusing channels in order to get your request to the reporter. This means that your court reporter should have their professional emails and cell numbers on their cards, and can be reached at any time. As simple as this may sound, there are many court reporting firms out there that will basically discourage communication directly with your reporter, and will have you go through a series of middlemen until your request or question finally gets to the reporter. This is an obvious waste of your time.

If you are currently working with court reporters and reporting firms that meet the above criteria, congratulations. Keep using them, as they are truly acting in the best interest of the record and your time. However, if the court reporters that you are currently hiring continually fail to meet any or all of the above attributes and practices of a truly professional reporter, it may be time to rethink what it is you should be expecting from the litigation support that you hire. You may benefit from seeking out other court reporting firms in your city that put a greater emphasis on efficiency and possess a deeper understanding and respect for the entire discovery process.

In another article, we discuss Getting the Most Out of E-Transcripts Without a Westlaw Subscription.

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