What It’s Like to be a Court Reporter

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n the Heavenly ledgers everything is perfectly recorded. In the earthly court court reporters try to get as close to that as possible. They need to type type and type some more — — and do it fast! Yet it takes more than just a high rate of words per minute to be successful. Whether people are describing violent crime breaking down in tears or cracking funny jokes you must stay an impartial employee of the court.

Devorah Cohen 23 is a court reporter for Gore Brothers in Baltimore Maryland. She’s been working for two years.

A court reporter’s job is to…

transcribe conversations word-for-word usually in a legal setting. We use a stenographic writer — — a 22-key typewriter used to type shorthand. The question-answer session recorded by the court reporter is a legal transcript that can be used for trial purposes. The field is broad because there are so many parts of legal proceedings that need recording.

I work as a deposition reporter meaning I type the oral testimony of anyone related to a lawsuit — — the plaintiff the defendant any witness to the case. An attorney asks the questions the deponent answers them and I type their depositions in a question-answer format.