99point5

Taking Control of Your Future

To my court reporting colleagues I say now, more than EVER,  you should realize that NO ONE has more vested interest in you than you.  Our profession doesn't need more reporters striving for mediocrity.  I hope my suggestions will encourage you to get better ... get smarter ... raise the bar, and keep it high!  No one has more vested interest in you ... than you!

To litigators, I speak as a voice of experience.  I'm shocked and dismayed that law schools and your own law firms teach you how to ask a question but not how to make the record.  As an advocate for making an excellent record and working with realtime, I've got some valuable advice for you.

You can't buy this advice

I must ask, where is the training for young lawyers today?  Seriously.  Where - is - the - training?  Law schools teach lawyering.  I realize that not every law school graduate will set their sights on litigation, but for those who have, are law schools offering training in the real-world skills necessary to take an effective deposition?  The art of the pause?  Style?  Deposition etiquette?  Realtime?  And finally, common courtesy?

Through this blog, I will offer advice to attorneys who wish to become trial attorneys.  Names will be changed to protect the innocent, but every teaching moment will come from my own practice.  Some may scoff at the thought of a court reporter offering advice to an attorney.  But think about this for a minute.  I've been reporting for 35 years ... longer than most young associates have been on the planet.  I've sat through literally thousands of depositions, hearings, trials, and arbitrations.  I've seen the best of the best, and all of the rest.  I'm asked all the time, "Bet you've seen it all!"  And you're right.  I have.  I'm anxious to share my knowledge and advice with you - no charge!  And perhaps the best part of all is that I'm not soliciting your business.  I won't be hitting you up later to give me your business, because my practice is not structured that way.

I am a reporter's advocate.  I stand up for court reporters, try to help them improve their skills and smarts, and urge them to do one thing:  Get better at what they do.  I've been at it a long time, and I believe my institutional knowledge is valuable to young professionals, not only reporters, but attorneys as well.

Stay tuned!

 

What are you willing to lose?

There's a growing phenomenon in the court reporting profession, and it's been coming on for several years.  Court reporting agencies have two faces:  The image the project to their clients, and the reputation they make with their reporters.  In September of this year, Alexander Gallo Holdings LLC filed for bankruptcy protection, hundreds of millions in debt.  The image projected to the client might be business as usual, but independent court reporters, videographers, and even other reporting agencies across the country are now standing in a long line of creditors.

I have had one account outstanding for reporting services for nearly three years now.  I didn't deliver the transcript a word at a time, yet payment trickled in in dribs and drabs for all these years.  Outward appearances said this agency was still in business, but I could write a novel with the e-mail excuses I received over the years.  Finally, I decided to just send the account to collections and be done with it and this ilk of reporting agency.

Over a dozen years ago, I lost tens of thousands of dollars by working for a court reporting agency with some very creative billing practices:  Two sets of books, two rate sheets (one for the client reflecting the true page rates, and one for the reporter, reflecting much lower page rates).  Unwary reporters (including me) were deceived by a greedy and unethical firm owner.  Business continued as usual for the firm for a while, but when word spread of the incident, they changed their name, again, carrying on business as usual.  It pains me to know they are still in business.

In a thread on depoman.com recently, a very wise, seasoned reporter said, "Don't you guys see what has happened? Their overhead is going up and up. The sharks are eating the sharks, i.e., they are lowballing each other to the point where they can't make their payroll. Right now they are being select in who not to pay. Eventually it will be everybody."

To the court reporters who have lost substantial amounts of money to reporting agencies lately, I offer my solidarity and moral support.  You're going through a lot, and it's tough.  You've lost enough.  But going forward, I ask, What are you willing to lose?  We have all been hit in the pocketbook by reporting agencies who play fast and loose with our time, our talents, our money.  When we sense something's not right, we each have the ability to say "No, thanks."  What will we lose by doing so?  I'm willing to lose every no-pay client.  I'll use the time to cultivate working relationships with others and to improve my skills to get better at what I do.  I'll use the time to blog more often about things that matter to me so that other reporters can gain knowledge and feel empowered.  I'll help other reporters to get better at what they do.

So what are you willing to lose?

 

"I will call you out."

"If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out."  So said President Barack Obama in a speech on health care some years ago.  "Know this," he said.  "I won't stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly as they are. If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out.  And I will not -- I WILL NOT -- accept the status quo as a solution.  Not this time.  Not now."

It was important at that time that simply maintaining the existing state of affairs was not acceptable. Efforts to move forward met with misrepresentations ... lies ... would not be tolerated in an effort to move forward.  Somehow, reading those words made me think about quality in our profession, especially on the CART/captioning side, and the thousands of hearing-impaired persons who depend on us as their ears for their window on the world.  The status quo ... doing things a certain way because that's the way we've always done things ... has left hearing-impaired people marginalized, cast off to the side with condescension, their best interests determined more often by what's best for someone's pocketbook than what's best to serve the person with a hearing-related disability.  Often, hearing-impaired persons are not ever asked if the ADA accommodation chosen for them is actually helping them.  Rarely are they asked if the services are of good enough quality to even be helpful.  Those times where hearing-impaired persons dare to complain about services, they're told they should be grateful for whatever they're offered in the way of accommodation, accommodating or not.  Because they feel they are being forced to spend money on ADA accommodation unnecessarily, organizations reluctantly provide it but go to great lengths to find the cheapest solution, not the best.

This means late-deafened adults may receive American Sign Language interpreting even when their hearing loss is so sudden that they do not know ASL.  This means hearing-impaired viewers are left in the dark when television stations use cheap, low-quality computer software programs instead of competent broadcast captioners to caption TV.  This means hearing-impaired students are impaired even further when they're offered notetakers throwing disjointed concepts at them instead of the full accomodation afforded by a qualified CART provider.  If studenst could "get by" with a concepts-based summary of a class, why have an instructor, who's being paid to share all of their knowledge with all of the class.  When universities pay their instructors for their knowledge and teaching skills,  don't they expect that brilliant knowledge to be passed along, in full, to every student?  And when that tuition check is written, is that for a full education or a summarized one?

Low-ball contracting practices, corporatization, and commoditization affect the reporting profession in very negative ways.  But unskilled, unqualified providers and the fly-by-night agencies they work for do more damage to the reporting profession than any amount of low-ball contracting or those embarrassing incentive gift-giving practices.  And who suffers most from this lack of quality?  It's the client, the end-user, the CART consumer, the person dependent upon broadcast captioning.  Someone in your family depends on it!

Providing effective CART or broadcast captioning requires trained, skilled, excellent providers.  Near perfection, in my opinion.  Anything less is a violation of the requirement of the Americans With Disabilities Act ... a violation of the very law that was enacted to protect the hearing-impaired consumer from being taken advantage of.  I never want to see that happen.  The hearing-impaired have been marginalized for too long.

Many institutions or entities who claim to serve and accommodate the deaf and hard-of-hearing are only too happy to squeak by the way they've always done things ... with The Warm Body Syndrome, or "Anything will do."  They sometimes misrepresent what's available to the CART consumer in the way of accommodation, telling them, "This is the best we can do," when what they really mean is, "This is all we're going to pay for."  Their first consideration is cost; their last, quality.  Members of the disability community are often excluded from the labor force.  But how can they compete in the labor force without the full opportunity to achieve the academic success which will enable them to possess the skills and training of everyone else standing in line for the same job?

I am extremely disturbed when methods such as notetakers or TypeWell services are offered as full accommodation for a deaf or hard-of-hearing person, especially in a complex setting.  I won't stand for that.  Not now, 20 years after the enactment of the Americans With Disabilities Act ... not now, when quality matters more than ever.  I won't permit the same old excuses to keep things as they have been for years.  When a business or organizations wishes to offer accommodation that is not full accommodation, I will call them out by informing them that there is something better for their CART consumers.  I will call them out by demonstrating the superiority of CART over TypeWell notetaking for hearing-impaired students where every word is important.  I will point out the high price paid for low cost ... that price paid by the CART consumer.  Rest assured, if you are a company that misrepresents, I will call you out.

Fear, anger ... and what to do about it

A reporter asked the question on the Depoman site:  "Are digital court reporters as skilled as steno reporters?" Reading the thread, including the choices given to answer the poll, I saw some things that weren't exactly spelled out:  Fear and anger.

We're fearful because our work has slacked off. Fearful because insurance companies insist on sharpening the bottom line, even when it means cutting out unnecessary depositions -- a kick in the gut for court reporters. We see transcription of digital recordings taking some of the work we used to do, and that scares the crap out of us.

As machine stenographers, we pride ourselves on our ability to write on these funny-looking machines, and some of us feel a great sense of entitlement because of that. For whatever reason, we haven't been faced with this serious competition for decades. But now we are, and it makes us very angry. How DARE a mere machine try to do what WE do? How DARE a tape transcriber feel like they can do as good a job as WE can do?

Consider that sense of entitlement that some of us feel. If you read other threads, you'll inevitably read the sentiment that there's SO much more involved in "being" a court reporter than simply knowing how to write words on a steno machine. Accuracy, spelling, punctuation, timeliness of delivery, ethics, willingness to be a team player, business sense, professionalism, and the almighty 'control' that's been mentioned. Those are just a few things. But not everyone who writes on a steno machine possesses all those wonderful abilities, nor can they turn out a full, accurate and complete transcript.

But some tape transcribers -- "digital" court reporters, if you will -- can. 

The Depoman post asked for a serious answer, and this is as serious as I can be. Do we, as stenographic court reporters, deserve success simply because we're SO good, SO smart, SO amazing at what we do with our machines? Or have we succumbed to hubris ... an arrogant self-confidence due to a lofty view of our own abilities? Do we REALLY think that skill on the machine translates into the "smarts" required to prepare a transcript? I sure don't. Or that there aren't literally hundreds of crackerjack transcriptionists with the brainpower, "smarts," to knock out a perfect transcript from a digital recording, imperfect and inaudible as it may sometimes be? I know some very talented guys and gals who are doing it every day.

I've talked about grassroots movements before. "Grassroots" is defined as "the involvement of common citizens in an issue or campaign." It's not from the top down, it's from the bottom UP. So in dealing with the fear and anger that we probably all feel when it comes to ER and tape transcribers calling themselves court reporters and invading a province that we've reigned over for years and years, I would suggest NOT looking to what we might consider the TOP and saying, "Help us! Save us!" I would suggest that each and every reporter who wishes to compete in the reporting profession start with one simple suggestion, the wording of which I credit to my friend and colleague, Breck Record: Get better at what you do.

Do not set your sights on being mediocre. Do not strive to survive, but aim to make a DISTINCTIVE IMPACT on the world you touch, and do it with such superior performance, without which it would leave a gaping hole ... a hole that could not easily be filled by any competitor. I, of course, would suggest that realtime of the highest caliber fills the bill, but that's just me. Be a beacon of light in your own back yard. And never, never, NEVER give up on your core values ... what you represent, how you practice, the quality of your work.

Earlier this year, Mark Golden wrote in the JCR: “There is no substitute for each individual's self-reliance. Without your own personal commitment to succeed, no one can make you successful. Without your own personal commitment to adapt and adjust, no one can protect you from external circumstances.”

I prefer the words of Jim Collins: ”Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than what the world does around you."

M.A.

The Value of Your Time

I recently had the good fortune to be asked to cover a long assignment overseas ... and the unfortunate occasion to have that case settle literally on the courthouse steps.  During the excitement of securing and preparing for the job, one small detail was overlooked, and that was a cancellation fee.  It's no small task to prepare physically, mentally, and technologically for such a huge undertaking, not to mention the business opportunities that are missed by having to decline work for weeks into the future.  CART providers often build preparation time into their fees and charge a multiple-hour minimum for their work.  Cancellation fees account for lost business opportunity.  When accepting a long-term assignment, keep in mind your hours, days and perhaps weeks of preparation time, including lost business opportunities.

Would you deal with a firm that didn't have a website?

If you're a new reporter, or even a student getting close to graduating, here's a suggestion:  Please, please don't limit your networking and marketing efforts to your local home market!  Even as a beginner, there are firms all over the country who are looking for regular reporters to cover regular jobs, "even" newbies, right in your back yard. If you're new, say you're new. No need to get in over your head, get overwhelmed, and not be able to deliver as promised.  I suggest spending some time not only getting your own business cards, but making a nice-looking website.  A website for a brand new reporter?  Absolutely!  Think about it. With anything you purchase nowadays, vacation spots you want to visit, contracting repair services for your home, buying a new car, or hiring a Realtor, would YOU deal with a firm who DIDN"T have a website?

It's just a suggestion, but even a one-page website is critical when you start to market yourself and your services to agencies near and far.

Free Rough Drafts

The growing trend of agencies providing free services to attract business is disturbing to me.  When agency owners play fast and loose with a reporter's skill and expertise, it makes reporters very, very angry and extremely unhappy ... and it's not the best way to keep those topnotch reporters on an agency's call list. 

 

Some of the very best firms I've ever worked for were started by reporters who, when faced with questionable business practices and intimidation tactics, said, "This is just not right!" and started their OWN firms.  I will never be a firm owner in the traditional sense of the word, but on the working reporter side of my business, I make the decisions on where I put my name as "Reported by ..."  I treasure my relationships with agencies who respect my talent and expertise.  I like to think that other court reporters are getting smart about business and the value of their services.  I also hope reporting agencies who've lost good clients to bad reporting are getting smart about how to attract the best and the brightest, most talented reporters to their firms.

 

... and you don't do that by giving their valuable skills and services away for free.

Proceed With Confidence!

Reporters and agencies alike MUST be able to proceed with trust and confidence in their business relationships. And there's no better way for the freelance reporter to gain confidence than by this one simple phrase: Knowledge is Power.

Getting smart about business, about your CAT system, about the benefits of realtime, about things such as tax planning and investments, and paying more attention to what's happening in reporting communities in states nearby to your own ... all of those things fall under Knowedge is Power ... and all of those things will make YOU a better reporter, a better business person, a better firm owner. You, a firm owner? Yes! There's a big difference between a single freelance reporter just trying to get by ... and a one-reporter firm. So let's get better at what we do!  Let's keep the promises we make to our clients, and the firms we work for.  Let's start to change our vocabulary!  Let's ignite a spark that'll start a bonfire!

Let's get smart about business, and proceed with confidence!