Fisher has provided 45 years of expert court reporting services in the legal community, and has emerged as the regional leader for providing the most accurate and professional services, as well as the latest, most up-to-date technology in the field. We are also available to appear wherever you need us around the state and beyond.
We provide:
- Prompt, accurate and professional court reporters
- Regular and expedited transcript delivery
- Hard copy and E-Transcript formats
- Publisher CD’s (includes all case transcripts with hyperlinked exhibits)
- Realtime Reporting Available
- Master Index, Exhibit Binders and Complete Document Management
THE ROLE OF THE COURT REPORTER
A court reporter is a neutral party in the litigation process, whose role is to take the official written record of the verbal exchange that is had in a deposition, court proceeding, etc. A court reporter’s role is NOT to try to interpret what is said, however.
Court reporters act as the human element of support and management in the process, and serve various purposes, including to:
- Provide a level of mediation and promote civility in the exchange, with the general intent to keep people from talking over each other in order to capture a clear record.
- Clarify when things are inaudible, and generally to get a clean and accurate transcript of what was said.
- Verify and put their name and credibility on the line that what was indeed said.
- Create a usable product from the exchanges that happen in the deposition, often incorporating exhibits, so parties have solid, usable materials to aid in litigation and establish justice.
Court reporting generally requires completion of a 3-year program for certification, and is a focus-intensive profession that is both physically and mentally demanding. Court reporters take great pride in producing the highest-quality product, and respect for how difficult this role is and consideration for its intensity helps them achieve this.
COURT REPORTING AND TECHNOLOGY
We are continually asked if technology and voice recognition programs are a threat to court reporters. The answer is simply, no.
We wholly embrace technology, and our goal is to incorporate new and effective methods into our practices as they emerge and develop. As human error inherently occurs, so do glitches with technology, thus a marriage of personal human management with technological tools will likely always be the optimal solution for getting the best record. Examples of the issues that we run across in our day-to-day experiences include:
- Technology can fail. Power can go out.
- Often, voice recognition doesn’t interpret the human language correctly; it can’t decipher between 2 deep male voices, for example, or who is who when a group of people erupts into an argument.
- People have often brought us muddy recordings and asked us to translate them into a usable product. The fact of the matter is, we can’t, in good conscience, do that and offer an official record. If you can’t understand what was said on a recording, it’s likely we can’t either. We need to be there.
All that said, we do completely embrace technology. We appreciate the use of these tools to help us make our product better and to back us up. We are only human, of course. Our service is a hybrid offering of technology and our first-rate, personal services.
Click here to learn about some of the professional freelance court reporters that work with us.