The
Voice Writing Method of Court
Reporting
Synopsis of NVRA President's Speech
There is a shortage of court reporters in America
today. We do, however, have the ability to completely end America’s
nationwide court reporter shortage, once and for all, in less than 5
years from today’s date. Voice writing is the way to accomplish
this.
As long as the profession of court reporting has
existed, there has been a shortage of reporters. Until the turn of the
20th century, writing by pen and ink prevailed. The stenotype machine’s
entrance provided a means to more rapidly grow the reporter population,
so the field of "stenography" was made more inclusive by redefining
itself so as to include the machine. Nevertheless, the shortage
persisted. Modern enhancements to the original 1897 stenotype
mechanical device, which is still used today, have allowed reporters to
produce transcripts quicker, but has done nothing to alleviate the
shortage. Moreover, today’s demand for additional capabilities built
into the reporting process, such as realtime display and electronic
delivery, have only underscored the critical need for reporters.
A pen writer in a Chicago courtroom invented the
process in the early 1940s. In the civilian world, we're used to
receiving new, cutting-edge technologies from DARPA and the
military-industrial complex. Thus it was so with the new
stenomask, as the U.S. Navy launched Webb's design, nurturing its
eventual growth into our modern stenomask. Model Installation
Program and other Best Practice initiatives led to other uniformed
services' adoption of this technology. In 1967, an attempt to
form a national organization in California failed, only to succeed in
states along the East Coast, where the method thrives today in states
such as Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. Ask around; odds
are you’ll run across some friends who
have seen the voice writing method in action.
NVRA’s voice-writer reporters are highly educated
and trained, many coming from other professional careers. Our basic
certification is the CVR, Certified Verbatim Reporter. To achieve the
CVR a candidate must score at least 75% on a written knowledge test,
and at least 95% on three five-minute dictations: a 200-wpm literary,
225-wpm jury charge, and a 250-wpm Q&A. Our CM, Certificate of
Merit test requirements are a 225 word-per-minute literary, a 250
word-per-minute jury charge, and a 300 word-per-minute, two-voice
question and answer test, with an accuracy rate of 97%. An RVR,
Realtime Verbatim Reporter, must pass one five-minute, two-voice
question and answer test at speeds varying between 180 and 200
words-per-minute with an accuracy rate of 96%. Our NSC, National Speed
Champion, achieves at least 96% on a five-minute, 350 wpm two-voice
question and answer test. All tests have strict silence requirements.
Some of you may wonder why these requirements are higher than NCRA’s.
The answer is rather scientific: the route taken by an attorney's
cross-examination goes from his or her mouth, to my ear, through my
brain, then to my "inner" voice. This form of repetition is naturally
effortless; it's what we all do in our daily conversations, and as we
read. So the most natural extension of this process is to
psychologically switch the repetition mechanism from "inner voice" to
"spoken voice." Thus we minimize the introduction of cognitive overhead
in our task of routing the spoken word to its permanent destination as
printed English.
The voice writing method, having been around
courtrooms and deposition suites for more than 60 years, is fully
capable of meeting your most demanding requirements. Our court
reporters can turn out expedited, daily, and same-day daily
transcripts. Voice recognition systems run under Windows and Linux; our
CAT systems run under Windows and are compatible with the entire range
of litigation support software, including CaseView and LiveNote,
Summation and eTranscript. In a same-day daily situation, it’s
perfectly feasible to have stenotype and voice reporters working
on the same case in shifts. The advent of voice recognition has
allowed
us to expand into the entire range of realtime-oriented services, such
as CART, captioning and Internet-based transmission of the product.