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Huseby: A Neutral Legal Deposition Site

August 31, 2010 – 4:11 pm

People involved in legal disputes usually do not trust each other. One side feels the other has done something wrong. Many times the defendant feels the charges are unwarranted or may be justified. Finding common ground on anything in some cases is difficult. Depositions and arbitrations make people nervous and can bring forth some very tense situations. When it is time to take depositions in a case, it is often perceived as a situation where each side will try to get every advantage over the other. This is especially true when there is a great wall of animosity and mistrust between the two sides. When this type of air arises and a party takes the deposition of a witness from the other side, choosing a neutral location for depositions is crucial. Taking a deposition at the opposing attorney’s office is perceived as going into enemy territory. The hospitality is less than friendly and the atmosphere is tense, if not hostile.

At Huseby, we offer a neutral location at our offices for depositions, arbitrations, settlement conferences and fact-finding interviews. As court reporters and legal videographers, we are an unbiased third party. Our goal is to make an accurate, objective record. We do not “take sides” and always offer the same services to both parties, with none having an advantage over the other.

Our facilities are clean and comfortable. For clients who need an extra room for private discussion before and after legal depositions or on breaks, we can accommodate with a little bit of advanced notice. Our offices are centrally located so that those traveling from afar can reach it easily and we can accommodate those with disabilities. Our friendly and efficient office staff can help make arrangements for extra services on the day of the deposition or help out themselves as needed. We offer document scanning and copying. For depositions with multiple exhibits, we can create an extra set for each party to follow along on the documents if necessary. This eliminates the perception of one party having the advantage of looking at documents while the other is peeking across the table, straining to see.

We also offer the ability to schedule multiple depositions back to back, so that all parties involved need only set aside one day for depositions, rather than an hour here or an hour there at multiple locations.

By shuseby | Posted in Depositions | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

How New Court Reporters Gain Experience

August 30, 2010 – 4:00 pm

Learning to be a court reporter takes time, skill and practice. All of Huseby’s court reporters are experienced, qualified professionals. Due to the nature of the business, court reporting firms cannot afford to hire inexperienced stenographers. As a result, it is very important that students and recent court reporting school graduates absorb as much information and experience as possible before entering the work force. There are a number of ways to do this.

School

The requirements for graduating from court reporting school vary from institution to institution. Some states have certification requirements; others rely on national guidelines for court reporters. The court reporting school usually adopts the certification requirements for the state in which they are located. The students take timed tests during class times to meet speed requirements as they progress through school. In most cases, they cannot take a higher level class until they meet speed and accuracy requirements for the previous level. Unlike conventional college classes, court reporting students will not graduate until all progressing classes are completed. Many schools raise the speed and accuracy bar above the certification requirement so that graduating students can pass the eligibility tests upon graduation from school.

Internships

One requirement many students must meet is a minimum number of hand-on hours of experience. This is usually achieved through an internship. Students earn hours by working with professional court reporting firms as interns. This gives them a chance to see how things really work up close. They learn things besides how to take down conversations on a steno machine, such as how to bind a transcript, how to create different electronic formats of legal transcripts, how to use different reference materials and how to proofread thoroughly. Interns spend the majority of their hands-on time shadowing professional certified court reporters on real job assignments. They see firsthand how to act, what to wear and what it takes to handle a court reporting assignment from beginning to end. Interns may or may not be asked to “write up” or transcribe an assignment, depending on the mentor. When it is written up, this transcript is used only as a learning tool that is never released for viewing as a professional product by anyone. It is helpful for the intern to read the final transcript produced by their mentor court reporter to gauge accuracy, learn new vocabulary and pick up nuances that make a transcription faster and more accurate.

New Reporters

Newly graduated court reporters often have a hard time finding employment. It takes great dedication and time on the part of the employer to take on a new reporter. The first several assignments a new court reporter encounters are “dress rehearsals.” Similar to the internship, the new court stenographer goes on assignments with veteran court reporters. They gain valuable experience and learn the ropes about the profession in general and the company in particular. The head of the company will likely request the new reporter transcribe the jobs for quality checks. A prudent firm will not allow new court reporters to take anything by themselves until they have proved their proficiency and reliability. Most new reporters are kept clear of medical malpractice cases or those of similar or greater technical difficulty. As with most professions, the newbie must first prove they can crawl before they can walk.

By shuseby | Posted in Court Reporters | Tagged , | Comments (2)

What Makes A Good Expert?

August 26, 2010 – 3:10 pm

Finding a competent expert is key to presenting a strong legal case. Experts are used to give opinions that support important points linked to the cause or effects of what happened. At Huseby, our court reporters have seen expert witnesses that captivate judges and juries, watched those that turn them off completely or just plain ruined a case by accident. A good expert can make the difference between winning and losing. The best experts are knowledgeable in their field and make a favorable impression on a jury. Here are some characteristics and traits for a good expert witness to keep in mind.

Education

When choosing a lawsuit expert, look for someone who is well educated in the exact testimony topic. When it exists in that field, choose someone with a college degree or training program certificate. They should have significant experience both professionally and physically with the task that is the subject of their testimony.

Personality
Experts should appear unbiased to the party on the other side by discussing facts, and refrain from making comments that people might find offensive. As with everyday life, if someone thinks the individual is arrogant or annoying, they will be less likely to believe what they are saying and place less credibility on what they hear.

Background
While nothing states a witness cannot have a criminal record, those that do lose credibility and respect with juries and judges. Count on opposing counsel to make the most of it. They should have few, if any, lawsuits filed against them. Where doctors are concerned, they should have minimal backgrounds with medical malpractice cases. In most states, lawyers are allowed to ask witnesses if they have any felony convictions or any misdemeanors involving lying, cheating or stealing.

Comprehension
Good expert witnesses have a number of characteristics that make it easier for  jurors and even lawyers to understand the subject. They should speak clearly and use words that people can understand. Using words with four or five syllables may make them sound intelligent, but the message is lost if no one can understand what they are saying. Mumblers make poor witnesses, even if they are intelligent and well-qualified to testify. Again, if people cannot understand what they are saying, it won’t matter.

Preparation

A good witness should be familiar with the key points of the case and know the basic subject or subjects they are expected to comment on for their testimony. They should be able to back up their opinions with factual information beyond “because I said so.” A strong attorney will help prepare the expert witness by running through the basic case information as it pertains to that witness and should explain the importance of speaking honestly, clearly and loudly. This will make him popular not only with the jury and judge, but also with court reporting services that must hear what is said in order to accurately take down the testimony.

By shuseby | Posted in Court Reporters | Tagged , | Comments (0)

CCRA Centennial Convention Coming Up Soon

August 25, 2010 – 3:43 pm

The California Court Reporters Association (CCRA) is hosting its centennial convention October 15 -17, 2010 at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel. Huseby, Inc. has a number of office locations in California. Many of our California court reporters will be attending the convention.

The keynote address will be given by Amanda Boxtel, an inspirational and motivational speaker who has been seen nationally on “Good Morning America,” as well as on the cable TV networks ESPN and MTV.

The CCRA will have a number of continuing education unit (CEU) sources available. Members can earn up to 1.9 CEUs. These will be eligible for credit towards the eight hours of continuing education that is now required for California court employees every two years. There will be a number of workshops and breakout sessions available. Sessions will touch on digital court reporting services in the state courts, use of cameras, different advancements in court reporting technology and the use of audio back-up, among others. There will also be a special Student Track class which offers tips and fundamentals for passing the certification test.

Aside from education, it will be an opportunity for those from many different court reporting firms to meet each other, socialize and network. This will also be an opportunity for California court reporters to learn about and discuss one of the most notable subjects for their industry: The California state budget as it relates to court closures.

For more information on the CCRA Annual Convention or to register, call (916) 447-1700 or check out their website at http://www.cal-ccra.org.

By shuseby | Posted in Court Reporting News | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Court Reporters Do More Than Court Testimony

July 28, 2010 – 11:12 am

Some people think that all court reporters do is go to court all day every day. While some court reporting firms do take only courtroom work, this is not the case with Huseby. Our court reporters do more than take down court testimony on our steno machines. We handle depositions, examinations under oath, conventions and more.

Notary Public
Many states require their court reporters to be notaries public. North Carolina and Virginia are two of them. This means that court reporters can administer an oath to witnesses, notarize signatures and certify transcripts and other documents. This enables our court reporters throughout the country to handle records pick-ups and also serve as an official keeper of the legal record in addition to swearing in witnesses for depositions and examinations under oath.

Depositions
We offer deposition services in our offices or we can go to yours. We do telephone depositions, videoconferences, examinations under oath and sworn statements. Our
deposition reporters transcribe the proceeding if requested. We hold our notes as many years as required by state statute in case it needs to be transcribed at a later date. Our court reporters also attend videotape depositions. As we have mentioned before in our court reporter blog, we do offer video synching with our court reporting transcripts.

Court
Although it is not all that we do, Huseby court stenographers do go to court as well. We cover federal, state, local and military hearings, trials, court martial proceedings and captain’s masts. They range from traffic court to civil and criminal cases.

Conventions
Another type of proceeding that Huseby covers that is unrelated to court is the convention. Many groups and organizations like to have a record of their annual or biannual events. Business meetings, memorial tributes, luncheons, award ceremonies and seminars can all be taken down by our court stenographers and incorporated into a written and electronic transcription. We can cover conventions for professional organizations, fraternities and sororities, industry associations and more.

Public Hearings
Some municipalities and states will request a court reporter’s presence at a public hearing. This gives citizens a chance to put their opinions and public comments on a record that will be reviewed later by government agencies or panels.

Miscellaneous Proceedings
We also provide court reporting services for pretrial conferences, settlement agreements,
arbitrations, medical malpractice panels, debtor’s interrogatories for bankruptcy cases and other events that may or may not have legal implications.

CART
Huseby’s real-time reporters provide Communication Access Realtime Translation(CART) services for the hearing impaired. These can range from court appearances to awards ceremonies, and school classes.

By shuseby | Posted in litigation support | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The Importance of Completing a Court Transcript on Time

July 26, 2010 – 10:54 am

One of the most horrifying experiences a court reporter can experience is the inability to complete a transcript on time. Besides angering a client and employer, court reporters that fail to produce a transcript can face any number of penalties, including sanctions, loss of license, contempt of court charges and jail time. Such occurrences are rare, as court reporters earn their money by completing jobs and earn clients with a solid reputation of accuracy and reliability.

A Texas court reporter of 20 years spent a week in jail at the end of May for failure to turn in a transcript and narrowly escaped additional jail time by finally completing the work in June. The subject of the 10-volume transcript was a dispute over an apartment complex sale from 2008. The trial transcript was ordered on appeal and the court reporter was given a deadline of July 31, 2009. The freelance court reporter missed the deadline and received four extensions over an 11-month period. According to the court reporter’s attorney, there were a variety of circumstances that led to her inability to complete the transcript as ordered.

From time to time, all court reporters face a difficult transcription. This can be due to any number of reasons, such as health problems, a death in the family or having to restroke, or retype, a proceeding due to equipment failure. Sometimes an overwhelming number of pages are ordered during a very busy stretch, making it a challenge to complete everything in standard turnaround time, seven to 10 days. With a large job, such as a 10-day trail, many court reporting firms will help out their employees by splitting up the number of days in a row they are taking down testimony when giving out assignments. In the event that a transcript is ordered on appeal, this reduces the number of consecutive days of proceedings that must be produced by each court reporter. This also helps the client receive the transcript faster, as multiple volumes of the transcript are being produced simultaneously.

Another avenue available to a stenographer when they have an overwhelming workload is to hire someone to help them. Scopists and proofreaders can be valuable assets with large volumes of transcripts.

One advantage to working for a court reporting firm like Huseby is that when one of our court reporters experiences a deluge of legal transcription orders, they can take off a few days to work on the transcripts. We are here to support them and help them so that they can always deliver transcripts to the client without missing a single deadline. When a court reporter is a freelancer on their own, there is no one available to provide relief and pick up any new jobs so that the orders can be transcribed.

By shuseby | Posted in Court Transcription | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Tips for Finding Technical Spellings

July 23, 2010 – 10:48 am

At Huseby, Inc., our court reporters are all experienced professionals. Court reporting students and brand new court reporters may wonder how our court stenographers have become so proficient at transcribing technical deposition and expert witness testimony.

As court reporters, it is our responsibility to spell things correctly in the written record. To guess at spellings not only makes the record inaccurate, it makes you, the court reporter, look unprofessional when things are misspelled. This may cause a client to question what else is wrong with a transcript and lead to embarrassing phone calls. With technical witnesses, getting the proper spelling can sometimes be a challenge. This is especially true for newer court reporters on medical cases.

It takes a lot of practice and great proficiency at building your software dictionary. Every time a new word is encountered, you should find the proper spelling, then define it in your dictionary. After gaining more experience, medical and technical terms will come more and more easily. Until then, here are a few tips to help you hunt down those unfamiliar words that may pop up during depositions and court transcription.

Online
Expert witness testimony can vary from medical doctors to electricians to accountants. They all have special terminology and acronyms that can be tricky, but some court reporters think that medical terminology is the hardest. So many words sound alike, but have very different meanings.  Finding the proper spelling is much easier than it used to be. There are many medical websites that have proper information. There are also some out there that are unreliable. Once you have punched in a search term, don’t go by the spelling that shows up on the results page. Choose a reliable source from the results page and look it up on that website.  There are several medical and legal terminology websites that are reliable and trustworthy. Ask an experienced reporter or your teacher which ones they use.

Hard Cover
Don’t count out the printed version of dictionaries and glossaries. Black’s Law Dictionary, Dorland’s Medical Dictionary and Harbeck’s Medical Glossary can be very helpful when you don’t quite know where to begin. One method is to skim through a section of entries that start with a similar sound and look for something that makes sense. Try different combinations of letters or look for common root words. This is usually more efficient than trying to type in letter combinations online, especially for unorthodox spellings. Keep in mind that some letters sound like others when you are not familiar with the term. This becomes a problem when the witness is speaking fast or does not enunciate clearly.  If it is difficult to find a word, try substituting S for F, N for M or the letter D for a B sound.

Extra Help
The most obvious way to get the spelling of a word is to ask the witness during a deposition break. Using the marking feature on the steno machine will help you find exactly what you are looking for at a moment’s notice. Politely ask the witness to spell the words that are unfamiliar. While some court reporters may stop and ask for a spelling in the middle of testimony, it will sometimes upset the attorneys taking the deposition. Another option is to let the witness know you may need a few spellings and call them afterwards when there is time to make a list.

By shuseby | Posted in Court Reporters | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Something New: Huseby on Facebook

July 21, 2010 – 10:48 am

Huseby has grown tremendously over the past several months. We have added mediation services, trial presentation technology and additional staff to accommodate discovery document organization. Now, in an effort to be more accessible, Huseby, Inc. has added to our presence in the social media revolution. We are now on Facebook. This will help you keep up with what’s new and different on the Huseby court reporting scene. Whether you are a court reporter, attorney, paralegal, student or just like to keep up with the legal world, visit our Facebook page and become a fan.

If you have not already found us on Twitter, come follow us and keep up with our tweets. You will find us at @huseby. Our updates are another great way to check out the comings and goings at Huseby. If you prefer, you can use our easy access buttons for both Facebook and Twitter on our website’s home page.

Consider this one more way we can better serve our clients, employees and fellow court reporting professionals. We will let our fans and followers know when we have a new blog post up, so you can stay informed on the latest services we have to offer as well as tips and tricks for litigation support and recent developments in the court reporting world.

By shuseby | Posted in Court Reporting News | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Get Organized With Huseby Document Support Staff

June 30, 2010 – 12:58 pm

One of the most crucial steps in a big case is to simply get organized. Large cases with cases of documents produced in discovery can be overwhelming, especially for smaller law firms or single practices. It can prevent a lawyer from taking on a case. Huseby can help you get organized. We are more than court reporters and legal videographers. We are your support staff, too. We tackle discovery documents with no hesitation. Whether you are producing them or receiving them, taking the time to identify and Bates Stamp documents can be half the manpower time in a case. We have the manpower. While you are doing the research and preparing to take legal depositions, we will prepare your documentation. Whether it is basic financial documentation to be used in Answers to Interrogatories or more complicated records to be featured later on as exhibits for depositions, witness preparation and court proceedings, we will get it Bates stamped, scanned, sorted and bound.

Give us the basic guidelines to follow and we can sort through boxes of documents and find the proverbial needle in the haystack that is the key to the case. Our efficient and courteous staff knows the importance of organization and attention to detail. They are already trained in Bates stamping, copying, scanning and binding. They keep an accurate record of what each document is, how it has been stamped or electronically named and where it is located.

Using Huseby’s support staff services prevents you from hiring additional staff and training them for just one case. It takes time to find the right new employee and get them trained accordingly. We have already taken those steps.

Once we have processed the initial document production and gotten everything organized, we can help you use the information to create a solid case for your client through use of document management, litigation support software and trial presentation as needed. Huseby’s trial support division can turn the boxes of documents we have stamped and scanned into charts, maps and graphs that will catch a jury’s attention and help you present a solid opening and closing argument. Contact our office for details.

By shuseby | Posted in Trial Presentation | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Video Depositions Tips

June 28, 2010 – 12:55 pm

Videotape depositions are used to preserve the testimony of the witness when they are either not going to be available at trial or when the attorney wants other people to see the testimony while preparing for the case. When people use our Huseby video deposition services, we have some basic guidelines that they can follow that helps our legal videographer and the deposition court reporter to create a better product.

Be sure to spell your name for the court reporter. Provide your firm name, address and email. Allow the court reporter time to get the information from the attorneys by phone. This is especially important in a telephonic deposition. Do not be tempted to put it off to the end even if those calling in to the deposition are a few minutes late and you just want to get started and worry about the details later. Sometimes when people wait until the end to share that information, they accidentally forget and hang up. Our court reporting staff will have little idea who they are and will have to do a lot of legwork to track them down. This is time that could be better spent producing transcripts.

Be prepared for the videographer to put a mike on you. Microphones are not only used for the witness. Everyone participating needs to be heard clearly, whether they anticipate asking questions or not. Do not be shy about speaking into it. If you are sick, try to limit the amount of throat clearing, coughing and sneezing done directly into the microphone. This will show up on the record.

If you are using paper documents, organize your exhibits before you start. Shuffling paper near the microphone during the deposition will drown out people talking both on the record and may make you miss what the witness is saying as well.

Speak slowly and clearly. Do not mumble or interrupt anyone while they are talking, even if you think your point is very important. Remember, our court stenographer can only take down one person’s words at a time. As a rule of thumb, court reporters do not interrupt during video depositions. Don’t make us wish we could.

Before a video deposition is used in court, it is often edited so that there is a clean record for the jury to see. Objections and arbitrary comments may be edited out by our videographer as requested. Try to carry out the deposition as if it will not be edited at all. Do not make silly, off-the-cuff comments that you do not want people to hear. Request to go off the record as needed.

Keep in mind that the video record and transcript record, while they can be matched up by a time index, are still two separate records. Our court reporter will make every effort to match the video. Sometimes attorneys will go off the video record and stay on the written record. This is generally done when making a stipulation or clarifying which exhibit or piece of information is being used. Be sure to cue the videographer when that moment is over. Sometimes people forget, and our videographer may be waiting to go back on the record.

At Huseby, we do offer video synching services. Be sure to mention it when scheduling our court reporter and legal video specialist. This will ensure that we use the proper technological settings and software and have it set up before the video deposition begins.

By shuseby | Posted in videography | Tagged , , | Comments (0)