For many people, court reporters in Georgia are just like a typical secretary sitting quietly in one corner inside the courtroom and writing down what is happening during a legal proceeding. But for legal professionals who thoroughly understand the significant roles they play in every court hearing, deposition, and other legal proceedings, court reporters are important for the success of the case.
How court reporters help resolve legal cases
The records that the court reporters produce can greatly influence the outcome of a court trial. This is why litigators hire court reporting services for legal proceedings.
Court trials usually take time to complete. Before the case is decided, court trials have to be carried out first. During the duration of the trial, the attorneys from the opposing parties need to present pieces of evidence and witnesses to a jury or judge to support their claim. The court would need someone reliable to act as an official record-keeper of these pieces of evidence and witness testimonies to ensure that everything is taken into consideration without missing any essential information.
The court reporter act as the official record-keeper of a court trial. Having a comprehensive understanding and familiarity of these resources allows court reporters to help the legal team find the most cost-effective ways to manage legal expenses while still being able to develop and present a compelling case. Their knowledge about various technologies also makes it possible for court reporters to recommend the most effective methods to follow and the best technologies to use for case documentation processing and accomplishing.
Court reporters provide invaluable litigation support to a legal team. On behalf of the legal team, a competent court reporter can bring values to essential activities like recording, preparing, storing, presenting, protecting, and retrieving official transcript of records, documents, evidence, and other related materials.
The official record prepared by the court reporter is used both by the jury or judge and the attorneys. The lawyers and attorneys use the official record to study the case and to prepare for the next trial. It allows them to plan their next move and to create strategies on how to defend their case and at the same time take down their opponent’s claim. Just like how attorneys treat the official record, the jury or judge also uses the compiled resources and official record to study the case during trial preparations and culmination. They partly depend on the record to come up with a fair and sound decision.
Can you trust the transcript of records produced by a court reporter?
A court is a place where specially trained professionals gather together to tackle legal matters and decide whether someone who is charged with a crime is guilty or not. Everyone inside the court has his important roles to play and thus they need to be fully equipped with the right training, experience, knowledge, and expertise. Among these professionals are the court reporters for legal matters.
Before they can start their career in the legal world, court reporters are required to finish at least two years of courses in court reporting and stenography. They also need to pass all certification exams and complete all requirements mandated by the federal and state laws before they can be certified. In order to pass the exams, they have to undergo rigid training in various fields to acquire high level of skills in terms of comprehension, typing, writing, listening, concentration, and speaking, among others. They are also trained to use different video and audio recording devices, software, and steno type machines, a specialized machine intended for shorthand reporting with fewer keys than alphanumeric keyboards.
Court reporters also have extensive knowledge in language and industry-associated terminology, especially medical and legal terminology. They also need to be a fast writer. The court reporters should have at least 180 to 225 words per minute typing speed at an accuracy rate of 95% or more. With this very high rate of speed, they can be able to catch up or even keep a few steps ahead of the speaker. Thus, allowing them to record the given testimony in its entirety.
End note:
The court reporters and the official transcript of records they produce can greatly affect the outcome of any given legal trial. They provide litigation support to the legal team and can help both the attorneys and jury or judge in studying and preparing for the case trials. That is why it is crucial for a legal team that wants to achieve its case objective to hire a highly skilled and reliable court reporter.