In today’s society nothing seems to be as it once was. With a less than perfect economy and many American families struggling, investing in education and making a career choice can be a very difficult transition.
The field of court reporting has gone through many changes over time, but with change it has also grown. Today salaries for trained and certified court reporters can range anywhere from $40-80,000 per year. With captioners and other reporters working in law, medical, or television making well over $90,000 a year.
In June 2012, Forbes named Court Reporting as one of the top jobs today that doesn’t require a 4 year degree. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this field will see more growth over the next 10 years.
Technology is also changing the ways court reporters work, as well as the type of work available to them.
One example is Speech recognition technology. The software programs are growing and becoming more sophisticated. These programs listen to what is being said and then transfer it in written language to the screen, and the technology is highly accurate. Currently these types of programs are available and being used by doctors and law professional for dictation purposes.
So with this amazing technology, why would there be a need for court reporters anymore? Well, although the programs have improved immensely, are highly accurate, and very useful, they are really only good for one on one dictation sessions. If you were to try to use such a program in a courtroom for example, it would not work. The technology cannot handle various speakers and background noise.
There doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger of this type of technology putting court reporters out of work any soon and actually it is used by some. There is an apparatus used by some court reporters (a mask) into which they speak (repeating what is being said into the mask) and the speech recognition technology then records the dialogue. Some use this to enhance their typing speed.
Also, those interested in studying to become court reporters can now attend traditional court reporting schools, or they can go to online court reporting schools adding convenience to the equation.
Not only is the field of court reporting seeing growth and good wages, it is also being improved by technology; not only in the courtroom, but the classroom as well.
