Chronicles of a Court Reporting Intern - Part 3

Up to this point, my internship hours have been primarily split between shadowing with a local freelance firm doing depositions, and shadowing at the federal courthouse. After spending time in both environments, I've discovered I really love the courthouse. You might remember my earlier post where I mentioned perhaps a job as an official would be my least likely choice. Obviously, I was surprised to discover that I actually really love the court environment. The variety of things you see and hear are fascinating, and I really enjoy experiencing the judicial process at work, especially from start to finish. Although I have sat in on a variety of hearings, it has been trials that really seem to fascinate me.

My most memorable experience at the courthouse happened on a day I was originally supposed to shadow my mentor. She unexpectedly became ill and, as a result, she made last minute made arrangements for me to shadow a different reporter. Several trials were scheduled to start that day, and as a result, the security line was quite lengthy due to a heavy influx of potential jurors. Consequently, I didn’t make it in time to go with my arranged replacement reporter. When I finally arrived at the CR offices, the team of reporters was nice enough to help me find another trial to sit in on. It just so happened to be a copyright case with eight attorneys that had also ordered realtime services. So I hurried off, following a very well-known reporter in the court reporting field, to sit in on the jury selection and opening statements. For the sake of privacy, I will merely dub this reporter, the Queen of Realtime, a title which is most fitting.

As you can imagine, it was a real challenge for me to keep all eight attorneys straight. Plus, adding voir dire on top of this made the very start of this day a little more “fun” than I had anticipated. I spent the first half of the day entirely confused by which attorney was which and I quickly realized I needed to practice my speaker identifications a bit more aggressively. The material of the case was also extremely thick and tedious, and the pace quick and rapid. I was having to stroke out a lot of words merely because of the nature of the material. My hands and arms were tired, but somehow the resident Queen of Realtime was busy making it look so easy and effortless.

Since I was sitting next to the law clerk who also had a computer screen with a realtime feed, I was able to glance over occasionally and see just how perfectly she was writing. I found my own screen full of red untranslates and mistrokes. How was she so darn good at this? I felt like my arms were about to fall off and my mind was starting to become numb from having to think so hard. I immediately remembered the valued advice from a reporter I had met about six months prior. He had advised me to invest in monthly massages. All of the sudden I was starting to see why he would say that. Again, I found myself wishing I had been practicing my speaker designations a little more ardently.

The day proved extremely challenging and exhausting, but I truly enjoyed the experience. Later, my mentor contacted me and asked if I had been scared off by the challenging day. We both enjoyed a good laugh over what I had been thrown into. (I have found that reporters are often quite careful to select hearings and depos that will not be too terribly overwhelming or difficult for a student.) Ironically, I never felt intimidated or scared at all. Maybe I was foolishly naive not to realize how extremely difficult it was, but I loved the challenge and, as always, I loved seeing the legal process first hand. To add icing to my court reporting cake, the intense seven hour courtroom workout proved very helpful. The following day was test marathon, and I surprisingly (or perhaps maybe not so surprisingly) passed both my 200 Q&A speed tests.