A Typical Day as a Court Reporter

Court reporters specialize in depositions. Court reporting is a fun and demanding career. There are many avenues within which to work. I choose to report depositions at attorneys' offices. These are legally binding interviews of parties to lawsuits, designed to discover the facts of the case before trial. Doing depositions means working at a different attorney's office every day. Some days, my jobs are literally around the corner from my home. Other days, I spend more time driving then I do using my steno machine (the machine used to write shorthand).

Once at my job, I report in with the receptionist, who directs me to a conference room where the deposition will take place. Once there, I set up my equipment and wait for the witness and attorneys to come in. Once we are all assembled, I administer an oath to the witness, wherein they swear to tell the truth. Attorneys ask questions, the witness answers them, all while I take down verbatim what everyone is saying.

Depositions can last anywhere from 20 minutes to many, many hours over the course of several days. Though my work at the attorney's office is over when the deposition is over, there is still much I need to do to finish the assignment. At home, I use a computer program to help me translate the notes I took on my machine into English. Then there is proofreading, binding the final transcript, billing and delivery to the clients to accomplish.

I usually work about twice as long at home on a job as I did when I was at the office writing it down. Being a freelance court reporter can be very lucrative if you work hard and are dedicated. A modest living can be made if you choose to only work a couple days a week. I've been a court reporter for 17 years, and still love it. I wouldn't want to do anything else.