Have court reporters been replaced by technology? Is court reporting a dying profession?

Question

I am graduating next year and I am very interested in the court reporting profession. So I would be very thankful to know if court reporters are a dying breed. Also if anyone knows a good school to go to for court reporting in Michigan, please let me know.

Answer 1

Court reporting is a great profession, but it's not for those who aren't willing to be dedicated. It takes A LOT of practice in order to get through the schooling.

I have been a court reporter for 17 years and when I graduated from college, people were saying that court reporting was a dying breed way back then in 1990. There is still a high demand for court reporters, but you may need to relocate to a larger city if you live in a less-populated area.

While some courts have replaced "live" court reporters with other recording means; i.e., digital recording, there is still a high demand for more court reporters in the freelance and broadcast captioning arena.

Freelancers usually work through a freelance agency that schedules depositions, hearings, etc, with attorneys. Most of this type of work is done in attorneys' offices.

Broadcast captioning entails doing instant realtime, such as you see on TV with Closed Captioning for the deaf. Those are actually court reporters doing that. You may be required to work out of an office, or some captioners are able to work from home in their pajamas while captioning live on TV!

There are also CART reporters (Communication Access Realtime Translation) who attend classes with a deaf student (usually at the college level) and the student reads everything that is said from a laptop screen provided by the court reporter.

And, of course, there are still plenty of jobs in the court systems for court reporters. And in some courts they have actually switched back to live court reporters because the digital recording ended up being a disaster and costing more than having a live court reporter.

In choosing a court reporting program I highly recommend attending a program approved by the NCRA (National Court Reporters Association). If you can attend a college in person, that is the best scenario, but there are many online programs also. The only NCRA-approved program in Michigan is the Academy of Court Reporting located in Clawson, MI. Their website is www.acr.edu.

Hope this info helps! If you want more info, you can check out the Court-Reporters (include the dash in the name) group at YahooGroups.

Brenda

Answer 2

No, I don't think so. I actually did a whole report about this and I highly doubt that they will be replaced by tape recorders, NJ tried it a few years ago and it just ended up costing them loads of money.

I'm in school right now for court reporting, I'm about halfway done so I really researched this.

Answer 3

I believe it is a dying field, but I don't work in a court room. I think that they will have good voice recognition software on PCs very soon, and then many courtrooms will switch to technology.

Answer 4

I would not think so because they are a witness if anything.