Court Reporter Services
For 18 years, A.C.E. Reporting’s experienced court reporters have responded to the needs of our clients by providing prompt and efficient court reporting services. As an integral part of our team, our certified court reporters are professional and attentive to detail utilizing the most up-to-date court reporting equipment and software. Selecting the right court reporting firm is an important decision for the following reasons:
- Court reporting and transcription experience within a firm is crucial for accurate and timely transcript production. A.C.E Reporting has 18 years of experience.
- Having a full complement of court reporters, transcriptionists, and proofreaders to ensure there is no disruption in court reporting or transcription services. A.C.E. Reporting has a staff complement of over 30 certified court reporters, in addition to transcriptionists and proofreaders, who all work within this specialized industry.
- Employing full-time in-house office staff to manage, assist, and answer questions of clients, court reporters, and transcriptionists; staff members who are available to complete and ensure scheduling, quality control, production, and delivery of the final transcripts. A.C.E. employs in-house professionals on a full-time basis to manage the offices located in Edmonton, Alberta.
- Ensuring the company has experience in multiple proceedings which can include all levels of court, coroner’s inquests, hearings, questionings, examinations for discovery, meetings, and seminars. A.C.E. Reporting’s court reporters, transcriptionists, proofreaders, and staff are experienced in all levels of court and quasi-judicial proceedings.
- Having in place confidentiality and security measures for every member of A.C.E. Reporting’s team is an integral part of preparing confidential transcripts. Each and every member of A.C.E. Reporting is security cleared to different levels.
Legal Transcriptionists
Whether you’re a lawyer seeking a court transcript or perhaps an organization needing a verbatim transcript of a meeting, A.C.E. Reporting Services can deliver.
Our transcriptionists are highly trained in providing timely, secure, and accurate transcripts from digital audio or video recordings. Simply upload your audio to our secure FTP website or deliver your audio or video recording to our office in Edmonton, Alberta. Completed transcripts are available in printed form, on disk, email, or secure upload through our FTP site.
Clients can count on A.C.E.’s expertise in producing accurate transcripts in a quick and confidential manner from a variety of recorded sources, including:
Hearings,
Court proceedings,
Conference calls,
Video proceedings ,
Business meetings,
Interviews, and
Witness statements.
Professional transcriptionists either have a legal background, transcription experience, or go through extensive training provided by A.C.E. Reporting’s experts. Court reporters also provide transcription services by listening to the audio and writing the proceedings with their steno machine.
A.C.E. Reporting and staff have developed a strong reputation in the court reporting and transcription industry focusing on the “verbatim word” producing accurate, verbatim transcripts. For 18 years, A.C.E. Reporting’s extensive experience has been in the transcription of court proceedings at all levels with the proceedings being recorded by the clerks of the court who utilize ‘For the Record’ Software. We are committed to privacy and understand the importance of confidentiality and security, having measures in place with all members of A.C.E. Reporting, including our facilities, to ensure full compliance with the client’s request.
DEFINITION OF A COURT REPORTER
A court reporter, also referred to as a stenographer, shorthand reporter, real-time reporter, or captioner, graduates from a comprehensive post-secondary court reporting college with writing speeds of 225 words per minute or higher. Typically, court reporting programs are two to three years in duration. A court reporter is trained on a stenotype machine using computer-aided transcription referred to as CAT. The average human speaks at about 180 words per minute; however, when you add multiple speakers at once, spoken words per minute can exceed 300 in lightning fast bursts. Training to be a court reporter and learning to write on a steno machine is like learning a new language.
The court reporter is trained to capture the spoken word into a phonetic code onto a stenotype machine with each line of characters representing a sound or syllable. The steno machine is an extremely complex computer with a hypersensitive keyboard consisting of 22 blank keys and a long blank number bar. The spoken English language is then broken down into combinations of sounds and phrases that the court reporter will capture using keystrokes consisting of thousands of combinations of these blank keys. Keystroke combinations that correspond to sounds of the spoken English are taught and the reporter must memore thousands of keystroke combinations that represent frequently used phrasing in the English language, as well as thousands of brief keystrokes used for commonly used words and complicated medical and industry terms.
Learning the steno machine and mastering the language is half of the technology used by a court reporter to produce accurate and immediate transcripts. The second half of court reporting technology is computer-aided transcription (CAT) software. Like our machines themselves, CAT software is extremely sophisticated, very expensive, and requires separate training for a court reporter to truly become comfortable with and proficient in all of its functions and capabilities. CAT software is loaded onto a laptop, and that laptop will be communicating with the court reporting machine either through USB or wireless, and will be translating the keystrokes of machine shorthand into written English on the laptop screen in real time. It is not just a multitude of words showing up on the screen in little or no format, like a Word document. CAT software translates into an immediate transcript format with specific spacing, line numbers, timestamping, margins, and automatic punctuation at the end of questions and answers.
What is actually happening is the court reporter is instantaneously translating spoken English into machine shorthand in the form of quick keystrokes on the court reporting machine, and then the CAT software is translating those complicated keystrokes of machine shorthand into written English on a screen. There is virtually no delay in the time someone speaks and when the written words show up on the screen. These two levels of translation happen that fast and are incredibly accurate.
The next function of the court reporter’s job is to ensure a verbatim, accurate transcript is produced by listening to the digital audio at the same time as reviewing the translated text, proofreading the entire transcript, and correcting errors or inconsistencies. The completed transcript is provided to the client in a format requested which can be Word, PDF, ASCII, through paper delivery or electronic.