Shortage of Court Reporters – Interested parties please apply

There is a nationwide shortage of court reporters.  The shortage can be blamed on many factors. 

• Two local schools that have produced graduates most recently – Massachusetts Bay Community College and Springfield Technical College – have discontinued their programs.  As of this time there are no accredited schools in New England teaching court and conference reporting! 

• Part of the reason for the closure of the Massachusetts schools was the low graduation rate, approximately ten percent.  Training is very intense and the attrition rate is very high.  Of those students who did graduate, most completed the two-year program in three or more years.  When the programs were not graduating reporters in sufficient numbers in a timely manner, the programs were dropped from the curriculum.

• The threat of replacing court reporters with tape recorders may have dissuaded prospective students from entering the field as well.  It didn’t seem prudent to invest in a career that may not be around for the long term.  Despite the fact that court reporters who write on computerized machines are the superior method of producing verbatim transcripts, our profession still suffers from the misconception that tape recorders are adequate replacements.

• Retirement will also thin the ranks of those in the profession, adding to the existing shortage. 

The shortage of court reporters has been felt not only in the freelance and official (courtroom) arenas but mostly in the broadcast captioning and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) areas.  Broadcast captioning has applications in television, conferences, and places of worship, to name a few.  CART allows for deaf or hearing-impaired students to have access to lectures in a classroom setting through a reporter who is assigned to a particular student.

It is now a priority of the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) to encourage more young people to get into this profession to ensure that there is an adequate supply of talent to take us into the future.  The judicial system and by extension the general public relies on the valuable services provided by court reporters whose numbers have shrunk to approximately 20,000 nationwide. 

According to the Bureau of Labor, the job outlook states:  

“Employment of court reporters is expected to grow by 14 percent from 2010 to 2020, as fast as the average for all occupations. Those with experience and training in techniques for helping deaf and hard-of-hearing people, such as real-time captioning and Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART), will have the best job prospects.” http://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/court-reporters.htm 

If you’re looking for an exciting career in the legal field, become a professional court reporter.  You will be charged with taking down verbatim testimony and producing a certified record of the proceedings.  Technological developments allow court reporters to provide computer-aided transcription, interactive realtime, and litigation support products in various formats.  Your unique skill will earn you the respect of the legal community, and you will be making a valuable contribution to the justice system.

Court reporting is an exciting profession.  No day is the same.  The cast of characters constantly changes.  You can travel the world covering different assignments.  One day you can be reporting a messy divorce; the next you could be reporting the James “Whitey” Bulger case.

Call us if you’d like more information about court reporting.  Even better, if you are a certified court reporter and would like to join our busy office, we have an opening for you.