An Interesting and Satisfying Career choice, Court Reporting

Did you know over the next couple of years United States will need more than 5000 court reporters. There are many reasons for the shortage, but there're only a few schools they teach the profession of court reporting. The largest demand we'll be in California, Texas, Illinois and of course New York. Today the United States are over 30,000 court reporters that are currently working as freelance, State, and federal employees. A large percentage of these court reporters are older than 40 years old. A good percentage of them are even older and approaching retirement, which is driving they need for younger well-trained court reporters. In the year of 2014 the Congress passed the FCC Broadcasting and captioning, which will create even more jobs on the federal level. So as for the need for certified court reporters grows, many four-year graduates are struggling to find careers that are satisfying to them. Since I know a lot of court reporters, actually most of them over the last 20 years working at Martel electronics, I know that they are a highly trained, smart, educated, and most of all dedicated to their profession.

What you can expect by graduating as a Court Report

According to US labor statistics hey average court reporter makes around $45,000 a year. This that can be very misleading, a lot of court reporters work part-time, and usually at their own pace and schedule. Here is the breakdown, 71% are what they call freelance court reporters who work for a multiple different agencies. So if you're looking for a career that gives you time scheduling flexibility, and interesting work, you may want to think about being a court reporter. Now that being said, I know a lot of court reporters in California, who earn way over 100,000 dollars a year. The rest of the court reporters work for either the county, State or federal courts. The federal and state careers offer benefits such as healthcare, automatic pay raises, and great vacations. Currently only about 29% of all the court reporters United States work in a courtroom on a daily basis. Most of the court reporters are doing depositions which are taken often and the lawyers dictation machine for law offices and arbitration rooms.

Room for advancement in the Field of Court Reporting

So how does a court reporter Advance in the private sector. The main way one can excel in the private sector is to actually start her own firm in higher other court reporters. The more court reporters working for them the larger their firm becomes, and the easier it is to get higher income. Over the last 30 years the NCRA National Court Reporters Association has been leading the way and making sure that the career has the guidance, Technology, and certification that the legal profession demand.

The biggest question on the mind of court reporters and students

So we have all watched Star Trek and other tv shows where the person can talk directly to a computer and it takes down the spoken word to text. For the last decade I have heard reporters tell me that they are worried about computers replacing them. Since I have the technical knowledge of the court reporting microphones business, I am here to tell all of you that this won't happen. A brief history of the court reporting profession and the demographics in the United States. So as computers started the voice recognition back in the 1990’s, they have had to be trained to one voice at a time. As the rapid advancement of computers happened over the next 20 years, it was quite surprising, then it happened the computer processors hit a ceiling. The ceiling came from the type of processor material we are using in human technology, namely silicon. At this point in time we really can't go much faster with processing, that is why you see quad-core chips in our computers today. Definition: quad-core processor is a chip with four independent units called cores that read and execute central processing unit (CPU) instructions such as add, move data, and branch. Within the chip, each core-operates in conjunction with other circuits such as cache, memory management, and input/output (I/O) ports. So enough technical information, let me break it down for you. We can't really go much faster, and the voice recognition still only works for one person who is trained on the computer at a time. So in conclusion with our current human technology,”Silicon” the limit has been reached. This is terrific news for your Court Reporters! Remember Martel Electronics has been the biggest supporters of the court reporting industry for over 60 years now. We also would like to thank all of the court reporters who are loyal to Martel!

The unspoken Taboo topic in Court Reporting regarding Voice Recognition question?

Above, I just outlined the problem with the hardware and software of the voice recognition replacing the court reporters in depositions and the courtroom. Now I am going to give all you court reporters the nuclear argument for why computers will probably never reach Star Trek levels in their ability to create an accurate record. So I know you are all listening to me closely. I will start by giving you the facts: Number of languages spoken in the U.S.A.: 311. Did you read that right, 311 different languages and dialects spoken in the US today. Most court reporters have no idea, that in Los Angeles alone there are more than 231 different languages in use in many different communities. So let us recap. Voice recognition only translates one person's voice at a time, and to achieve the higher rates of recognition, you need to train it over months to tune it in. Next fact: voice recognition software can't recognize multiple voice at one time. This is a hard ceiling. Next fact: the sheer number of different languages would overwhelm even the largest supercomputer using cloud based server all over the world. So in conclusion your court reporting career is safe at least for the next 200 years or until an Alien race gives us a better computer! L.O.L. If you like this article please, tweet, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, or share it with a friend.

On a real Note below is a Complete list of Accredited Court Reporting Schools:
(if you do not see your school here email us  Law@martelelectronics.com )