Editor's note: This is the second installment in a three-part series. Part one can be found here.
"This has been a lifesaver,” Wisconsin’s then-Director of State Courts Randy Koschnick said, in his 2022 Annual Meeting of the Judicial Conference address.
Koschnick was speaking of the state’s pool of digital reporters — also known as electronic reporters — who could work remotely to help courts throughout the state create official records. In 2019, Wisconsin added use of audio recordings — monitored by digital reporters or others — to its slate of options for capturing the record, and recently the statewide pool became another tool to help with pressing stenographic court reporter shortages.
Courts nationwide wrestle with the same shortages and vary in whether they see digital reporters as part of the answer. Courts differ over when and how they use audio or video recordings to help make verbatim records, as well as whether a digital reporter is involved at all and what certifications those digital reporters need.
While Wisconsin embraces digital reporters, Iowa State Court Administrator Bob Gast said his has yet to evaluate the option. The Court Reporters Board of California doesn’t license digital reporters or recognize digital reporter certifications from other parties, said California Department of Consumer Affairs Public Information Officer Renee Santos in email. However, California does use electronic recordings to make records of certain proceedings.
When courts use electronic recordings — with or without digital reporters — the audio needs to be captured clearly to prevent gaps in the transcription where portions are deemed inaudible or too difficult to decipher. Digital reporters traditionally oversee such recording systems and take time-stamped notes to help with preparing a written transcript later on.
American Association of Electronic Reporters and Transcribers (AAERT) leadership aims to standardize approaches to digital reporting and highlight a profession they say has potential to grow quickly to help state courts’ needs. While there’s a wide variety of approaches to creating transcripts from recordings, AAERT leaders advise using a trained, certified digital reporter.
Digital reporters have the ability to remotely oversee several courtrooms at a time — a practice that’s helping the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida cover more. Although, AAERT officials encourage using one reporter per case, where possible.
While voice writers and certain stenographic reporters provide rough transcripts in real time, digital reporters traditionally cannot. Some vendors in the space have recently been incorporating speech-to-text automation tools in hopes of helping digital reporters provide initial transcripts more rapidly.
HOW COURTS HANDLE RECORDINGS
The Court Statistics Project (CSP) surveyed 30 states in 2022, finding 28 in which at least one trial court used audio recordings as part of creating verbatim records and 12 that used video recordings. But that doesn’t capture whether digital reporters or judges, clerks, technicians, or outside parties monitored the systems or prepared the transcripts. Some courts use recordings for backup, while others use them to help create the official written record or even as the record itself.
In Minnesota, for example, verbatim electronic recordings of proceedings can be captured either by court staff who are certified in the equipment or by certified electronic court reporters. The latter are also qualified to prepare the transcripts. Electronic court reporters must be certified either by the state court administrator, an accredited court reporter school or by the AAERT.
In Wisconsin, AAERT certification is a nice-to-have but not a must, per current job postings.
California, meanwhile, turns to stenographic or voice writers in some proceedings and electronic recordings in others. Electronic recordings can sometimes be used as the record itself, or the basis off which a written official record is made. The “trial judge, a courtroom clerk or a bailiff” may handle the equipment monitoring, although rules recommend choosing someone “without other substantial duties” if the recording is audio-only.
The stenographic National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) warns that courts run security risks when they engage outside parties to transcribe recordings without first carefully vetting professionals or tracking the chain of custody. That’s because someone getting ahold of the audio or video files could potentially tamper with them using editing or voice cloning technologies, per a November 2023 white paper. The NCRA also warns about risk of mistakes — like missing transcript pages — when using transcribers that lack sufficient training or certification.
AAERT President Janet Harris advocates for putting electronic recording in the hands of trained, certified digital reporters, which could “standardize the quality” of the work courts can expect when turning to these methods.
“If court administration wants to rely solely on the equipment, and they want it implemented without any best practices in place, they’re not going to have a good experience, [and] it's going to reflect badly on our industry,” Harris said.
IN-PERSON V. REMOTE?
Ideally, a digital reporter would be present in the room and handle one case at a time, said Harris and Benjamin Jaffe, AAERT vice president and digital training and development manager at digital reporter online training company BlueLedge.
But staffing constraints can make the one-reporter-per-case ratio difficult, Jaffe acknowledged. Realistically, one digital reporter can generally oversee several cases at a time for lower-stakes matters like traffic tickets that are rarely appealed, he said. A capital murder case would warrant a single, dedicated reporter, however.
A digital reporter in the room can set up equipment and troubleshoot the system throughout proceedings, confirming audio is being recorded and pausing proceedings to adjust equipment if needed, Harris said. Court reporters physically present — digital or not — also can intervene when audio is unclear, asking court participants to repeat themselves or speak one at a time, Jaffe said.
Still, Wisconsin is one state that particularly values digital reporters’ abilities to work remotely.
Judges who choose to participate in the statewide pool can have a digital reporter remotely log in to their courtroom system to take the record and later produce a transcript. By July 2023, the pool had 27 reporters operating out of nine locations, including courthouses, district offices and digital hubs. The remote work also gives flexibility, letting digital reporters serve courthouses “across county and judicial district lines,” as needed, Statewide Digital Court Reporting Pool Manager Connie Hansen reportedly said.
That helps rurally located courts “where the nearest stenographer may be more than 100 miles away,” Koschnick said. The Wisconsin Supreme Court advises remote digital reporters to work with on-site staff to test equipment.
A GROWING SPACE?
Digital reporters study legal terminology, court procedures, punctuation and other topics similar to those studied by stenographic court reporters and voice writers, alongside learning the specifics of their tools, Harris said. Digital reporting students typically take about 16 weeks to one year to complete training — faster than court stenographers' multiyear programs — and with a graduation rate of “close to 100 percent.”
AAERT reports a comparatively high pass rate on its certification tests, too.
Last year, AAERT saw about 1,000 attempts to pass its deposition reporter, electronic reporter and electronic transcriber certification exams, Jaffe and Harris said. All three involve knowledge tests, and the transcriber exam also requires producing a mock transcript. Across all three tests, there was an average pass rate of 70 percent.
In comparison, many states recognize the National Court Reporters Association’s registered professional reporter exam as certifying stenographic court reporters, per the organization. That exam includes a written knowledge test and three kinds of skill tests, each with different transcription speeds.
In 2022, the NCRA saw 402 literacy skills tests taken, with a 34 percent pass rate; 419 jury skills tests, with a 36 percent pass rate; and 576 transcript/Q&A skills tests with a 22 percent pass rate. Knowledge test data for 2022 is unavailable, but 2021 saw 324 administered with a 55 percent pass rate. Overall, 107 people became registered professional reporters in 2022.
While digital reporters help some courts make official records, certain proceedings need real-time draft transcripts — something the digital reporting profession has not traditionally provided. Solutions vendors are now exploring whether newer technologies can accelerate transcript turnaround times and win courts' acceptance.
Harris, who also is vice president of enterprise sales for court reporting solution provider Stenograph, said several digital reporting solutions vendors are incorporating speech-to-text engines in hopes of helping digital reporters rapidly generate rough transcripts.
In the case of Harris’ company, most clients currently using the speech-to-text-empowered tool are court reporting agencies. Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida Trial Court Administrator Matt Benefiel also previously told GovTech his court was testing a real-time speech-to-text transcription solution from the company For The Record, and would need additional editing capabilities before using it more widely.
