Since the advent of reel-to-reel tape recording, court reporters have been listening to naysayers advise them that they’d better retrain for another occupation, as technology will be replacing them. Although that may be the case in some courtrooms, court reporters are in such high demand worldwide that they can literally pick and choose where they’d like to live, the type of work they’d like to do, as well as how busy they want to be. And that’s because court reporters don’t work just in the legal setting anymore – they perform closed captioning, as well as communication access realtime translation, or CART, for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the classroom, for judges, jurors, and counsel in litigation, at conventions, as well as in the workplace. Court reporters also provide CART/captioning for live theatre performances.
There is such a tremendous need for realtime reporters that on June 31, 2008, Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which included the Training for Real-Time Writers Act, providing for funding for realtime reporting programs. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association estimates that there are over 28 million people in America who are hard of hearing, and that number rises daily as American veterans return from military service.
It is because of improvements to technology that court reporters now have so many opportunities, and for those attorneys and judges whose court reporters provide instant translation in depositions and in the courtroom, they will tell you that no audio system could ever do the job of their reporter.