Today, Law.com reported that court reporters in Broward County, Florida will begin to be replaced by a digital system. The digital system will use a speakerphone to record depositions and then store the audio files on a website, for a fee.
One Florida official said that the cost of a court reporter to transcribe a depositon is between $3.85 and $6.95 per page. But the part that doesn’t add up is the digital system charges $1 per minute to record a deposition and another $2 to $5 per minute to have the deposition transcribed. So, where are the budget savings? Yes, the transcripts are optional, but in our experience most attorneys prefer to have a transcript.
And as we have discussed before, a digital recording is not the answer. A speakerphone device cannot ask a witness to stop and clarify what was said. This is something only a trained, certified court reporter can do.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with the budgetary savings of a digital recording system? Or is the transcription of the spoken word too important to rely on a “machine?”
3 Comments
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Quality counts. When quality of court reporters is not good, clients begin looking for other ways to preserve verbatim written words. Digital and electronic recording has not won yet over good reporting — and there is no second-best reporting - it’s either VERBATIM or NOT.
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Hi Lori, thanks for your comment. We couldn’t agree with you more - there is no second-best.
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I could write a novel about court stenography. Due to the digital recording system, work has been cut down for me almost 70%. Sometimes the profession is almost seasonal, I want to say. I’m sure if we didn’t have the digital system, even the agencies would pay their reporters on time because they would have plenty of work and funds to do so.