Day in the life of
Court Reporter – Rick Wallace
I was a court reporter for several years largely covering murder trials for major news organizations. It is a great job – interesting with lots of variety and no day is like any other. The main skills you need are great comprehension, intelligence, judgement, and the ability to write good, clear, and interesting copy very fast in order to meet deadlines.
Shorthand is also an asset as it helps you record comments precisely at speed and many courts bar the use of recording devices during hearings and trials. Having a basic knowledge of the law surrounding contempt of court and what is subjudice is really useful too as is an ability to relate to prosecutors, attorneys, and police to get intel on which cases to cover and to clarify details while a case is in progress.
Court Reporters
use verbatim methods and equipment to capture, store, retrieve, and transcribe pretrial and trial proceedings or other information. Includes stenocaptioners who operate computerized stenographic captioning equipment to provide captions of live or prerecorded broadcasts for hearing-impaired viewers.