Running a successful legal practice requires you to hire various professionals. One of the often overlooked ones is a court reporter. Most firms nowadays think they can handle the recording of their court and deposition hearings using hi-tech machines and thus do not need a trained court reporter.
The lack of a court reporter might, however, be the central issue that wreaks your firm. Fortunately, you don’t have to have a provision for an in-house court reporter on your payroll. You can hire court reporters from Phoenix Deposition Services in Phoenix, AZ, who deal with court reporting.
This way, you are assured of tapping into the best talent for your legal practice at a lower price than the price of having a full-time court reporter on your staff.
You also don’t need to deal with lengthy interviews, provision of space and equipment for the reporter among other aspects that come with an in-house court reporter. Here are some of the duties that a professional court reporter can handle for your firm.
Review Technical Terminologies
Legal proceedings are at times filled with a lot of technical jargon more so when dealing with medical and engineering cases. If you cannot understand these firms, you are not in a good position to defend your clients accordingly.
In these cases, you can get court reporters with expertise in the area you are handling to review some of the technical terms and advise you accordingly.
Maintain the Order of Legal Documents
There are piles and piles of documents needed in legal proceedings. Without their proper marking, it is easy to lose them or misplace them from time to time. The lack of important papers for your case might mean the failure of your case. A court reporter can help you organize the documents and label them accordingly for easy retrieval during your proceedings.
Respond to Court Requests
The court might need clarification on different recorded statements or events from time to time. At this time, it will call on the court reporter to provide an accurate record of the proceedings. This way, you will not be distracted from your line of thought by having to go back and forth clarifying different statements.
Transcribe Depositions and Video Evidence
A portion of your evidence and reports might be in the form of movie recordings. These might be hard to follow for the deaf in your audience and other people with hearing difficulties.
To ensure these people still follow the proceedings, a court reporter will transcribe your video for them. You, after all, wouldn’t want your firm labeled as one which does not take everyone’s needs into account.
You might think that the expense of a court reporter is unnecessary and has been overtaken by the numerous recording solutions available. No machine irrespective of its technology can, however, handle the above tasks for your firm. As such a court reporter rather than a recording machine is still an essential part of your firm’s success.