In a courtroom setting, court reporters are practically invisible. They sit off to the side, carefully recording every spoken word at speeds of 200 words per minute or more. Many times, it is easy to forget that court reporters are in the room, which can create problems in the finished transcript. Attorneys sometimes do things that make court reporting in San Diego, CA difficult – here are some things you can do to ensure the best quality transcript.
Speak Clearly
It doesn’t matter how clever your line of questioning is if the court reporter can’t hear it. Speak too quickly or softly and you may wind up with a transcript littered with “inaudible”. Court reporters can interrupt an attorney to ask them to speak up or to clarify, but this can derail the attorney’s train of thought and cause them to mess up an important point they were trying to make, so reporters try not to do this very often.
Be Aware of Shop Talk
Some cases rely heavily on the testimony of expert witnesses like medical professionals, psychologists, and scientists, who have had their deposition taken before trial. These depositions can be read at the time of trial in lieu of the experts appearing in court. Also, experts can be located at a video conference site and the court can see and hear their testimony by way of video conferencing. This saves time and travel costs when video conferencing is utilized.
Because these types of witnesses are very well versed in their field, they are likely to use jargon that a court reporter may not be able to accurately display. In order to help them create a clear, quality transcript, attorneys should attempt to provide their reporters with what is called a “crib sheet” in advance. This tells them all of the technical terminology that they may hear at trial in advance so that they can better understand – and therefore better record – court proceedings.
These are two incredibly helpful things that attorneys can do to ensure that the transcript of the court proceedings is complete and understandable. In our next post, we’ll go over a few more ways that attorneys can make a court reporter’s job easier. Contact the professionals at Park Avenue Deposition Services to schedule your depositions, video conferencing needs and court reporters.
