Huseby Inc. Court Reporting Blog | Nationwide Court Reporters

The workday of Huseby’s certified court reporters doesn’t end when the testimony is finished. Part of deposition services or courtroom testimony is the production of the final transcript, which often needs to be done immediately. Some of our reporters work with scopists to make their work days easier.

What Is A Scopist?

On a certain level, scopists might seem like proofreaders but their deposition services go beyond simply checking for errors. Their expertise is similar to that of court reporters as they have to have the same skill set in order to produce the transcript.

When court reporters finish documenting testimony, they use Computer Aided Translation (CAT) software to translate the shorthand from their steno machine into a rough transcript. This transcript plus any audio recordings or supporting documentation is handed off to the scopist who makes typographical corrections and verifies the transcript against the audio. A scopist provides other services beyond simple proofreading, such as working with reporters to update their CAT dictionaries with additional keystroke patterns.

Scopist Horror Stories

Over the many years Huseby Inc. has been providing deposition services, we have certainly had our share of bad scopist experiences. A bad scopist makes a reporter’s job harder because the reporter is still responsible for creating an accurate, polished transcript and has to fix any mistakes the scopist made.

It’s easy to focus on the horror stories, but in fact there are many excellent scopists out there. People don’t talk about the good ones because as a profession we expect perfection. High quality work is the standard so we have the habit of overlooking exceptional performance. Besides, once you find a good scopist you want to protect a valuable resource.

Scopists Make Our Jobs Easier

The relationship between reporter and scopist is a very tight, symbiotic one. As reporters it is hard to turn part of our work over to someone else since it is our reputation on the line, but once you find a trusted partner you can free up many hours of your day.

What can you do with the extra time? Some of our reporters can take on more assignments for courtroom and deposition services and that means they make more money. Others prefer doing their own scoping most of the time, but use scopists during busy times to help with the backlog.

Many court reporters use scopists to find balance in their own lives. Court reporting is a harsh mistress and the demands put more stress on our families and ourselves than other professions. A scopist lets us spread the workloads and stay on a more even schedule. Finding a good scopist can be a challenge, but is well worth the effort.