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Details To Check Before You Submit Your Court Transcript

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When you're a court reporter, it's important to possess a significant degree of attention to detail not only as you enter the legal proceedings into your stenograph machine. You'll also need to be adept at reviewing the transcript afterwards and making any necessary changes. Generally, the judge will specify when he or she needs to see a copy of your work. The timeframe for this request can depend on several things, including the urgency of the case. Regardless of whether you have just a short amount of time to prepare your work for the court or a little extra time, here are some details that you need to check.

The Spelling Of Names

Few things can discredit you as a court reporter more quickly than spelling someone's name wrong. Misidentifying a witness, an attorney, or someone else who was involved in the legal proceedings indicates sloppiness on your behalf, and this definitely isn't an image that you want to portray. It's imperative that you go through your court transcript and carefully check the spelling of each person's name. If there's any confusion about how to spell a name, contact the appropriate attorney. You should never assume any name's spelling. Remember, a name as commonplace as "Mike" could actually be spelled as "Myk."

Relationships Between People

You'll often reference the relationships between people, and these are details that attorneys and witnesses can mention very briefly — leaving you scrambling to jot down the details. For the sake of accuracy, it's important that you double check any relationships that you reference in your transcript. Whether a witness is a neighbor, friend, family member, co-worker, or a complete stranger to the person about whom he or she is speaking matters a lot, and getting this right will avoid confusion.

Dates

Dates are another element of your court transcript about which you must be meticulous. Getting something wrong can add confusion to the legal proceedings, and potentially direct frustration from the judge and the attorneys toward you. It's always a good idea to confer with the appropriate attorney if you have even the slightest bit of confusion about a date that was mentioned. For example, if a witness has a heavy accent, it might be unclear whether he or she said "March 5" or "May 15." While interjecting at the time is a good practice to use, following up afterwards will ensure the accuracy of your work.

For more information, contact a company like L & L Reporting Service, Inc. today.


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