New York Court Reporters Blog

I get at least one call a day from people interested in going to court reporting school and inquiring about the prospects for work for court reporters in the future and what are the qualifications I look for in hiring new reporters.

The person I spoke to today said she was told she would be working in approximately 1-1/2 years as a court reporter. I know almost nobody who finished school in a year and a half and was working and making a good living after 1-1/2 years of school.

Buyer beware. Schools are in the business of selling services. The services here are court reporting classes. Prospective students must be realistic about what it takes to finish a court reporting program and that’s lots of hard work. Lots of discipline. Lot’s of time. Lots of money. Be realistic acout your skills when you are in school. There will be lots of competition when you graduate for the few beginning level jobs available. Many seasoned and talented reporters are having difficulty getting work, at least in my part of the country.

I love court reporting with a passion and have always encouraged people into our wonderful profession of court reporting. For so many years, court reporters were a dying profession. Today many people are looking our way for a new career, which is great. However, I am unable to help people almost on a daily basis who are very talented and are graduating at this time and need jobs desperately and that concerns me greatly.

My advice, if you are talented, disciplined and realistic about your revenue as a beginner, go for it. The rewards are great but it is not exactly the garden of Eden painted by the schools.

I have been writing about jobs in the court reporting industry and jobs in general, how to get jobs and how to keep jobs.

I have been focusing on what separates employees and when the choice has to be made who is keeping their jobs. I think something that would matter to me is if an employee expressed some concern for the difficult times a business owner is going through. I think an employee who shows some empathy for his boss and the problems they have will be surprised on how far a few reassuring comments would go. It is really just being a little considerate of your boss. I think the term would be an enlightened employee, who is thinking outside his own problems and showing a little concern for the person who signs the checks.

I have tried very hard to be sensitive to my employees’ and court reporters’ concerns but somehow I don’t think they realize that we employers, owners of court reporting companies are dealing with very difficult times too. And, yes, we do have some great years but when it goes bad, well, it ain’t so much fun.

I have been writing about court reporting jobs as an employee and court reporter jobs and how to ensure that you keep yours when the need comes to cut staff or there are less court reporting assignments and who gets what.

What really makes one employee or court reporter more likely to keep their position or even advance in position? It is a total package that comes under the heading of work ethic. What is this phrase work ethic all about?

There are so many elements that comprise work ethic that are equally important for an employee as well as a court reporter working in a court reporting agency. There is so much to be said about work ethic and so little written about it.

A basic concept in business and especially annoying in our court reporting culture is being late. Too many reporters are late or just on time which is really late because they are not set up on time. Late says so many things about a person’s work ethic. It says, I really don’t respect your time as much as mine because, in essence, I am wasting your time by having you wait for me.

We, in the court reporting business, are in a service business. A service business is about providing a service, court reporting, and all forms of the service should be performed with care and respect. Coming a little earlier for assignments as well as in your personal life show that you care and are aware and respect somebody else’s time.

Thinking about the other guy’s time is definitely part of a strong work ethic for me and one that I respect in my employees as well as my reporters, friends and family. Being on time is definitely something that says a lot about you!

I have been writing about how to write resumes, interview and get work as a court reporter in a very difficult period in the court reporting industry.

In writing about how to get court reporting jobs, it seems to me an area that has not received proper attention is how to keep jobs. If you go that extra step, put forth that extra effort, you may not find yourself out of a job to begin with. How do you improve on your work ethic and stand out from the rest of staff you are working with?

Well, look around as if you were the owner of the firm. What are the things you observe that you may think the owner is unaware of. Believe me, most owners who have survived in business are aware. I am always amazed how my employees are unaware that I am aware.

I understand that you are not an owner and you probably feel overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. How many employees go to work thinking how great it is to have a place to go to work and not deal with the horrible problems facing our country in the unemployment area. Many people will be faced with significant lifestyle changes because of loss of jobs and the inability to replace their jobs. Have you given any thought of the ramifications of losing your job? Anybody who has a job should count their blessings because every day there are many people emailing and knocking on your boss’s door looking to take your job.

I would counsel everybody to look at their job a little differently today, to give it the respect and appreciation you have probably never thought about but perhaps in giving some serious thought to what life would be without it this thought alone hopefully should motivate you to look at yourself more critically and give some thought on how to improve on your performance.

Our court reporting agency is located in the heart of New York City. We often get requests from other court reporting agencies to use our conference room with their own reporter. We always let them do it, bring in their own videographer and reporter. The agencies we work with on a regular basis give us the same courtesy.

However, we have on occasion asked agencies we do not work with regularly to help us when our client wants the reporter who has been on the case with him. Sometimes we are refused. The point being, why can’t more of us look past the dollar and help each other out. We have also had jobs “mistakeningly” gone out under another agency’s name or the reporter and videographer conveniently forget who they are working for. My agency is extremely careful to make sure this never happens.

It is more important now more than ever that we work together as a profession and really try and help each other out.

I get numerous calls weekly from other owners of companies in the court reporting industry. Everybody is talking about the same thing, lack of work, plummeting prices and fierce competition. Freelance court reporters are concerned with the lack of work.

As an owner of a court reporting business for more than 25 years, I have never seen or heard the type of proposals and negotiations that have become part and parcel of our everyday business. I hope that just one person reading this will try and hold to decent and fair rates and not be bullied into accepting absurd terms that are being dictated by some insurance companies and law firms. We have said no several times now and each time our clients came back with counterproposals because they did value our service and weren’t willing to sacrifice quality. That is reassuring to some degree.

We have a highly-tuned skill, and we deserve fair compensation for the time, effort and money we have invested in our profession.

I have had several emails from court reporting students looking for a fair appraisal of what the job market will be when they get out of school. They are taking student loans and obviously schools need students and probably are painting an unrealistic picture of our industry. For years, the court reporting industry’s biggest problem was not enough reporters. Now, like most segments of our world, there are not enough jobs.
What is a student to do? Be realistic about your skills. My feeling, only the top students will finish, which is usually the case. They will land the limited amount of jobs being offered to new students coming out of school.
There are many new fields opening up that do not demand the time and money, ie, investment, that becoming a court reporter does. Be honest with yourself about your prospects. Call the agencies in your area to find out if they are hiring new reporters and what you can expect to earn. Do some research. If you are reading this blog, you are a step ahead of most in your class.

Good luck. It is a wonderful profession but like everything requires hard work and dedication.

Rates are falling in the court reporting world due to the same economic factors affecting our country. There is a shortage of money due to tightening of the credit markets and a huge loss of jobs. Corporations and individuals have less money to spend on litigation. Less litigation obviously means less deposition work. There is necessarily more competition for the available work. More competition among firms to get the work and more competition among reporters to do the work. Plus there are lots of unemployed people looking for new careers and there will be a new flock of court reporters hitting the street in a couple of years.

So, guys, what to do. For me, we are trying to hold as firm as possible on our rates. The price-cutting that is going on is outrageous. There is a market for price-cutting and there is always a market for quality and good service. Those of us around for the longest of times have survived not on cutting throats and pricing but offering consistent high quality and excellent service. The reporters who will survive are those who also bring to the table these same old-fashion work ethics.

I have been writing this court reporting blog for court reporters for several months now. I find it fascinating the number of court reporters versus other readers who have responded to my court reporting blog. I would think that somebody out there in the court reporting world is reading court reporting blogs but you would never know it from my blog experience. After all my blogging, I would say I get about 1 percent of responses from court reporters reading blogs. It appears that there are a vast number of spam emails that go out to blogs. If anybody knows what purpose the spam serve, I would certainly be interested. I can’t imagine anybody who is writing a blog on court reporting for court reporters would be interested in this spam stuff. If somebody out there has some kind of explanation for all this spam clogging my blog mail, please tell me.

Thanks to all the court reporters and people associated with court reporting for reading my court reporting blog.

Court reporting and court reporters will be facing the same economic challanges that exist in many other sectors of the economy. There are becoming fewer jobs in every aspect of court reporting and that’s because the volume of court reporting has fallen in the courts as well as in the legal industry. Law firms are firing because of a lack of business and courts and other agencies are using other type of recording devices. So what then is the future of court reporters?

I think court reporters have to keep at the top of their game, always improving and increasing their skills. They must constantly show how incredible their range of skills must be to perform their job efficiently.