How to be a court reporter?

Question

What all is envolved in becoming a court reporter? how long is the course? How much does it cost? What is the average amount you are paid yearly?

Answer 1

Well, first of all it partially depends on what state you are in. I know CA is one of the hardest tests where some of the other states are easier. Do as much research as you can into schools in your area. If you are in a large city you may be fortunate enough to find a junior college that offers court reporting in which case tuition is pretty reasonable but I don't really know how they handle if you don't progress quickly enough or if you get to really go at your own pace. In a vocational/business school the tuition will be more but they will also have more money to spend on features. However it is really an at your own pace thing - no matter how long you practice some people may never be able to type 90 wpm on a typewriter, right? So there is a lot of issue w/ paying $5000 a year & they tell you it takes 2 years and if you are not up to speed by 3 years you have No court reporting license and you owe $15,000 in student loans -- Not A Good Deal.
Most of the people I know took 4-6 years so when they tell you it only takes some people 2 years that's what they want you to hear. 2 years 2years. I saw ONE girl get thru in 3 years. I graduated in 4 but it took an extra 2 years to pass the state board and get my license (I had a baby -- slows you down A LOT).
As a matter of fact they say: don't get married, don't get divorced, don't have kids until you are out of school. Because it's a speed thing you can't take ANY time off or you lose speed. So they only give you two vacations a year, 2 weeks for Christmas and TWO WEEKS FOR SUMMER while you are in school.
Your goal, at least in my state was 200 words per minute 4 voice dictation. Four people read a 17 minutes court transcript that you have to transcribe 15 minutes of while including perfect grammer and punctuation. The academics you will have to pass are English, Medical Terminology/anatomy and Law.
So the good news is if you are above average and tenacious you should NEVER be out of work. They have been telling people for litterally decades that court reporting is a bad field to go into because computers are going to take over so there is a DRASTIC SHORTAGE of new recruits into the field. You can basically work/be on call whenever you want. You can work as many days a week as you want if you are a deposition reporter. If you work in court it's usually full time.... hmm I think I was sent something recently offering $5-6k/mo for full time court work. A depo reporter can make anywhere from $40k - $250k depending on how much they work and where. Just imagine the page rate is say $4 -5 PER PAGE. So if you do a depo you could get an appearance fee or an hourly fee or a daily fee and then each attorney buys 1-2 copies of the transcript. My very first depo was 4 hours long but it had SEVEN attorneys so I made almost $1400 on my first job!

Sorry I know that was a long answer but I'm happy to answer anything you like. There's lots of other stuff like state certification versus National certification too. In my area they were talking about 5 years ago about teaching steno shorthand in High School and wanted to know if any of us CSRs (Certified Shorthand Reporters) were interested in teaching. I've been wondering how that went and considering I might enjoy teaching it more than doing it. :D Holler if there's anything else you'd like 2 know.

Answer 2

I would contact your Secretary of State's office and ask them to mail you information or suggest where to look to find it. I can't help you much past that. Check out your state's website and see if you can find contact information there.