#29 - Tik Tok Entrepreneurial Transcriptionist Diana Corrado: Working with Court Reporters

0:03 Court reporters hold one of the most important roles in the justice system. We're entrusted with the official records of the courts and we also have to run our own businesses, which is not something most of us were prepared for. I'm Bryn Seymour, freelance court reporter and life coach, and I invite you to join the discussion about the problems we face and the solutions we create on the unique journey of a stenographer. Welcome to the entrepreneurial court reporter podcast. Hello all court reporters and friends. I recorded this podcast with the lovely Deanna. We recorded this a few months ago, actually, and it just took me a couple months to release it. I have been dealing with a lot of things, as you know. If you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I have recently transitioned from freelancing to working in court and I am loving it, even though I'm commuting an hour and a half each way, which is a total of three hours a day driving.

0:58 So definitely going to experiment with different commuting options. But eventually I will get to record a podcast about the pros and cons of freelancing versus working in court, like it from my opinion, my point of view, and hopefully I'll be interviewing a lot more people who can share their point of view on the difference between freelancing and working in court. If you are in the entrepreneurial court reporters Facebook group, we also have a thread on there talking about the difference between court and freelancing and what people prefer and why and what different types of people there are, that you know certain types of people. They thrive with freelancing and running their own businesses and, just like, do great with that, all that, and then there are other types of people who thrive in the more structured environment and like to work in court and do better in that environment, and others probably could do either one and would just be happy, regardless of what the circumstances are.

1:56 Anyway, this episode with Deanna is awesome. I think you guys will learn a lot about it. The emergence of digital court reporters is a big thing, I'm hearing, and so I have nothing against digital court reporters because and I shared this in the Facebook group as well Personally, I feel like what makes a court reporter is not just the method of taking down the testimony, whether it's stenographic, digital or voice but the more important thing is that there is a human being who's overseeing the entire process, from recording the testimony in the courtroom, being present there and listening, paying attention to what's going on, to the context, being able to stop the proceedings if something is unclear like having an actual human oversee that process of creating the record, not only physically being there in the beginning, but also overseeing it to the end, to completion, to the finish line.

2:51 So if they're going to delegate it to a scopus or to a transcriptionist or to a proofreader, then they should oversee that process meticulously and carefully and really be really care about the outcome and make sure that that person is trustworthy. And we are the ones who have our names going on the records. We are the ones who are entrusted by the courts, we are the ones entrusted by the government to do the official records. So a court reporter is not necessarily someone who types or listens to, you know, knows a certain way of recording transcription or you know. It's not necessarily the method, but it's the whole process.

3:34 That, I believe, is what makes a court reporter. So I have nothing against digital court reporters. I know that a lot of stenographers look down on digital court reporters because they feel that, you know, we spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, we worked so hard learning how to do stenography and certainly it is probably the best and the most accurate. It's probably the best way to ensure that the court reporter is fully paying attention, because if someone is actually manually typing every single word down, that is the way to ensure that that person is fully engaged and fully in the proceeding, paying attention, and that's what we really want. But that doesn't mean that other methods are not also fully engaged and you know that's on them.

4:18 They have to find a way to do that. So, yes, stenography might be the best way for someone like might be the best route to go. I think a lot of digital court reporters. They want to be stenographers, but maybe they're working towards it. So I again, I have nothing against digital or any other method of takedown. I personally am a stenographer. That's what came easiest to me. That's what I knew about. I didn't know about any other means of writing down the testimony, although if I did, I might have been tempted to take other routes at that time. But I'm glad that I stuck it out because Steno is just so much fun. Actually, that's the most, that's the best part of my career.

4:59 I love just writing on the Steno machine. It's so therapeutic, it's just it's so much fun and I love how it doesn't make any noise and it's just so awesome. So, anyway, enjoy the conversation I have with Deanna. I would love to hear your comments and oh and what I wanted to talk about is how, like I'm sorry that I'm a little bit all over the place and not consistently. When I first started this podcast, I really believed that I was going to consistently release an episode every week and I thought I'm just going to make myself do that I'm going to be very, very disciplined. My goal was to become a full-time life coach for court reporters, but things change. Life has so many different paths and different routes and I want to try different things.

5:41 So, in addition to the fact that I started working in the court on May 25th and that was a big transition, you know, getting adjusted to the schedule nine to five but also the commute have to take that into account as well, so it's an adjustment. Like I said, this episode was recorded a couple months ago, so when you hear me talking about how I just I'm just starting my new job and just getting my office set up, well, that was two months ago, so now we're moving right along in the timeline here. So enjoy the episode. I hope you learned something new and I'll talk to you later. Hello, how are you. Hi, I'm Jane Laofici, and hear me. Okay, how are you? Yes, you sound and look great, I'm good.

6:23 I'm just finished a long day at work at the new job in the courthouse. Oh really, how new is it? Two weeks. I started May 25th, so like well, more than a little more than two weeks, but brand new and are you just doing like all the cases, or is the UN court or other court reporters in the courthouse? It's like there's a bunch of different courtrooms, so there's about five court reporters and we just kind of like rotate and every day we're in a different courtroom. Okay, cause I've worked in courthouses where there was like one court reporter covering everything, because it's so small, and then I've worked, in other words, where there's, like you know, dozens of court reporters all running around. So that's awesome. Yeah, it's like it's different for every courthouse, I guess.

7:05 Yeah, and you're in New York, right. Yep, I am in New York. The court in the Bronx family court Wow, that's exceptional. Thank you so much for coming on. The court reporter podcast. Thank you, I'm very excited to speak with you. I listen to pretty much every single one of your episodes and I love your story and I'm so grateful that you're opening this channel for court reporters and court reporter adjacent careers to get more information about the industry and jobs that are kind of associated in the industry. I know you've talked a lot about scoping and transcript assistance and stuff like that, so I really appreciate it because it's kind of an industry that people don't know a lot about. I think it kind of stops at court reporters and there's like a whole other industry that just continue within it, right. Yeah, it's so interesting.

7:45 I actually just posted on entrepreneurial court reporters Facebook group, which is associated with the podcast I posted just before coming on here. I was asking people for their stories and their experience, like how did they get into this industry? Because for me it was very by chance it was. If someone hadn't randomly told me about it, I would have never known that this career existed, and it was after I had already gone to regular college. So it was like I wish I had known about it earlier and it seems like it's not something that people really know about. So I was asking how can we raise the awareness that this career and get it out there? more. I love that because that's exactly my mission too. This industry has been very good to me and, although I'm on a different kind of side of the industry, I think that it can provide a really great job for a lot of people, especially people that are looking for flexible work and for work that really matters.

8:35 Whenever I do legal transcription, I feel like this work really matters, and I'm told by my co-reporters what a difference it makes for them, so I love to share that with people. That's amazing. So why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about you For sure? So my name is Deanna. I'm actually located in Canada, in Alberta, Deanna, Deanna, yeah, that's what it said. I'm Italian, but, yeah, same as you. I completely stumbled on legal transcription about six years ago and when I heard the two words legal transcription it was like all of these puzzle pieces to spell right into place for me. If I had heard about it before, I would have never pursued other opportunities. So I talked to a lot of people that hear that, hear core reporting or legal transcription. They've never really thought about it, but it just fit.

9:16 All of these little pieces of things that they like or are good at. They can all come and contribute to this career and make them really great at it. So I started just as an apprentice. I started learning about legal transcription. I'm not certified. I'm also a social-sysclerical voice recorder. I'm a digital recorder now. So I do work for some stenographers and one of my biggest stenographers is actually in New York as well, so I work all over across the country. I bounce between Canada and the US very easily. So about maybe four years ago I decided I wanted to open up an agency. I didn't just want to work on my own, so I started trying to find people to come and help me with my transcript load. There is a huge demand. As you know, it's really easy to just inundate yourself with work. So it's been really great to scale a business in this industry but also understand that quality is the utmost.

10:00 So it's important not to grow too fast or take on too much. You really want to try to balance it all out so that you can do good work for the core reporters. So I've been doing that and I've been growing a business. And then just recently about a year ago I started posting on TikTok because I realized nobody is really talking about legal transcription, not even having core reporters on TikTok Like, if you search for core reporters, there's only a few right and so I started talking about it and I had one video do really well. It reached almost like 5 million people and just talking about this industry and I think it kind of planted a seed for a lot of people, not even necessarily to come do legal transcription, but maybe to do core reporting, to do scoping, to work in law. If they've always had a passion to do that, to just work in law, especially becoming a core reporter, becoming a lawyer.

10:44 Those are very difficult to obtain. Becoming a legal transcription isn't easy. I wouldn't say it's the easiest thing I've done by far. It's very difficult but it's way easier than becoming a core reporter. So I think it's a good stepping stone. So for me my goal is to be a core reporter. I hope one day. It's a lot different in Canada than it is in the US, but this is like a good stepping stone where I know I would be able to complete that task and just add on to my responsibilities that I have now. So when you said you're not certified, you meant not a core reporter. I'm not a core reporter and I'm not a certified legal transcriptionist either and I get a lot of eyebrows raises at that to completely understand. So I work directly for core reporters and they are the ones who certify on their work, so they're still responsible for what's being written down.

11:26 I have really great relationships with the core reporters. I've worked with that. I know that whatever I don't know or need them to check on Mark, I don't guess at anything. I'm constantly asking for a second or third pair of eyes on my work and so, as a legal transcriptionist who's not certified, I have to understand the importance of my work is still going to somebody who needs 90 to 100% of it to be complete. So if a core reporter could find a legal transcriptionist that can make a really complete document, take a lot of burden off their shoulders, right. And so I've had core reporters that kind of like hold on to me for dear life because we have a good relationship and a good working dynamic where we trust each other right. So what is a legal transcriptionist? For sure. So I get courtroom testimony or mostly deposition hearings, trials.

12:11 It's essentially anything that the core reporting community can't supply the demand for, because we all know that a legal transcriptionist cannot accomplish anything near what a core reporter can. But there's just not enough core reporters and every year we have an issue where we have more people leaving the profession due to retirement than coming into it right. So now we have core reporters and courthouses seeking additional services from less qualified people to kind of get some of the bulk done, so that core reporters can spend the time doing what they're best at, which is being on the record and perfecting the record and certifying it. So essentially a core reporter will just use a legal transcriptionist to kind of get the bulk of their workload done and help them get additional transcripts faster so they don't have to have a full-time job in the courtroom and a full-time job outside the courtroom doing transcripts.

12:59 So okay, so it's basically you receive, I'm guessing, the audio file, and then you type everything. Yeah, so I receive an audio file. I receive a lot of DCR files so those core rooms may just only have a digital recorder so they don't even have the capacity to take down a transcript that might come directly from the courthouse in some cases. A lot of the times I'll just receive like room audio that a court reporter might record. So again, most of the time I'm working for voice reporters or digital reporters. Stenographers don't really have the need for a legal transcription because their takedown is so accurate. So I do work for some stenographers in the capacity of a scopus, which is obviously a lot different than just a legal transcriptionist. As a legal transcriptionist I'm typing into a blank document, usually in Word document, and then scoping in core reporter software, scoping on their file.

13:48 Wait a minute. So voice reporters have to type everything after they speak it into their software. Yeah. So this is where I get a lot of eyebrows too. It depends on the court reporter. There are some voice reporters that their takedown is immaculate. They just need somebody to go over it same as a scopus. And then there's a lot of voice reporters that are still building their drag in, which is the AI that is used to do voice reporting. And it takes decades to build an accurate AI, especially depending on where you are. If you might live in somewhere where there's deeper accents or more hectic courtrooms where there are lots of people speaking, so much is missed. So that's when it's actually easier to just hire somebody to type it than to go back and fix it.

14:30 Wow, this is really interesting because I actually haven't had the chance to interview any voice reporters yet, so I never really understood what are they actually doing? I understand that they're basically repeating everything they hear, which sounds to me like I have no idea how they like that seems kind of like difficult to do. I mean, yes, but I guess they're repeating everything they hear A lot of them speak in Steno as well, like when they're doing voice reporting. So, for example, for Q&A you would say Keek and Kak. So Keek is Q, Kak is A, and this is just for pro-blants. I'm not a voice reporter, I have never done voice reporting, but I work with them.

15:12 So a lot of them speak Stenography or some type of Stenography shorthand into voice. But there's just a large percentage of the voice-ready population that is not accurate enough for it to be worked on after. It's just easier for it to be typed from scratch. And that's where the big differential comes, I think, between Stenographers and voice reporters. Because Stenographers, we all know that you leave the courtroom most of the time. I mean, sometimes things are crazy and you can't get accuracy down, but for most time you can leave the courtroom and it's essentially done or close to being done, and with voice reporters they just don't have that luxury. But again, it comes down to the fact that it's much easier to become a voice reporter than a Stenographer, and so you have all these people that are trying to meet the demand of core reporters but they don't have the time or the money to dedicate to being a Stenographer or it's like another kind of stepping stone to becoming a Stenographer.

16:03 Them. I actually know many core reporters that are voiced and Stenography. They do both. Okay, and so I'm going to ask. This is leading to more questions that I'm just really curious to learn about because I understand that you're not a voice reporter. I mean, you're not a voice reporter but from your experience working with them, you might be able to answer some of these questions. I've heard that they got a lot of I guess I'll use the word persecution in the beginning from Stenographers and because it was like a lower less accurate. Thank you, less accurate way of taking down the testimony and also, like you said, easier, not as much hard work has to go into becoming a voice reporter.

16:43 So they used to get a lot of persecution, but now the persecution is going to the digital core reporters. But actually now I'm wondering, like as someone who transcribes their recordings, what makes it easier or better about transcribing a voice reporter's testimony than a digital reporter's testimony? Because in my point of view, if I'm just thinking about it logically, it seems like if a digital reporter has the setup to put a microphone on everyone which I'm assuming that's how they do it like they have all the equipment, they put microphones everywhere so that the recording is as accurate as possible, because that's what they're relying on.

17:24 Is the audio recording? Yes, and everyone has their own microphone. Wouldn't it be easier to listen to the actual testimony than to listen to someone repeated who doesn't necessarily know the terminology, or maybe they don't really pick up every single word correctly, or maybe they just don't interpret it, Because it's kind of like we have to hear the testimony interpret it to make sure that we get the context correctly, because the English language has a lot of conflict. There's a lot that goes through the process of what happens in the brain when a court reporter is transcribing testimony and we have the freedom to kind of like control the room and stop them and read Make sure that we got it correctly. So what do you think about the difference between transcribing a voice reporters testimony and a digital reporters testimony?

18:12 Okay, that's a great question, and a big point of clarification is I'm never transcribing from a voice reporters words like. I've always transcribing from room audio where everybody's like I can actually channel if I need to. So I'm never using that file. But there's still a huge difference between transcribing for a digital reporter and transcribing for a voice reporter. Obviously, every state is different and the certifications are different, but when you have a voice reporter in the room, you have somebody who still understands takedown and how takedown is supposed to happen, and so the notes will be impeccable speaker logs. Sometimes I'll even get a file from a voice reporter that's, you know, clean enough for me to edit or use as a reference for what they said.

18:55 There's a lot better care that goes into what a voice reporter, what a voice reporter, takes for me to use. I can get a way better transcript done from a voice reporter than a digital, and so when I go into a digital file, I'm essentially going in on my own, because a lot of digital reporters don't even work on the transcript side is at all, so they don't know what it takes to go what, what it takes to do a transcript right, and so that's the biggest thing about core reporters is that you guys have both sides. You have this innate understanding of transcripts and what a good transcript looks like. You have also managed the courtroom manage the exhibits, have to do the index insert, have to deal with the decorum of the lawyers all of that stuff right, while a digital reporter they're not doing any of the transcript side typically.

19:38 I mean there might be some digital reporters that are also transcriptionists. So that's where if a digital reporter is hired, you're not hiring somebody that has the knowledge of both sides or they won't pipe up as much as they. Hey, you know, settle down if you guys are talking over each other because they're not the one that's actually doing the same thing. So there is still huge difference between if somebody's recording voice or brain digitally and that's why I was super interested to speak with you, because I do speak to a lot of core reporters who don't even know how I fit into this world or why I fit into this world and it really comes down to the fact that if we had, you know, all of these stenographers floating around, that there wasn't enough or there was less work than stenographers. That'd be great.

20:18 Every single courtroom in the United States and Canada would have a stenographer, but we just don't have that. And now we have all of these people that are creating different forms. Or, you know, different states are opening up different legislation so they can allow different types of takedown, because there's just not enough of those skilled professionals to do the job, and so we're having to open up for a different kind of takedown. Right. And so that's where it comes from me. Where I'm not certified, I don't, I don't essentially have any stake in the game, except for the fact that you know my reporter might get mad at me if I do a bad job. But I understand that the work that I do really matters. I'm not either people's. You know real cases. I'm not an actual reporter. So that means I need to have a cursory view of everything from that stance, like I can't guess.

21:02 I can't just decide to put something in because I want to. I can't make those calls. I have to really be from the perspective that I don't know what I don't know, and I need to have room to do most of the work but still have my core reporter going and do all the finalizing touches and certify it and make it the real record. What's the difference between a legal transcriptionist and a scope is? For sure. So a legal transcriptionist typically has no knowledge of cats or clips, or did you cat software at all? So I didn't know about those softwares at all when I started I worked just as a legal transcriptionist for three years. Typically you type in word or word, perfect, you can create like an RTF or an ASCII file and that can be transposed into cat or clip software.

21:44 So that's what most of my core reporters do, is they take my file and transpose it into their software and then do all the finally final touches and all of that, make sure the formatting is all good and those things and then for if you want to go into scoping, that's where you need to be make the investment to learn scoping software, which it blows my mind that stenographer learn scoping software, learn stenography and learn transcribers all at the same time. Like whenever I hear your podcast, it literally blows my mind because even just the art of real transcription is such a tall thing to learn. Like I've just dedicated so many years of my life to it and I know I have so many more years to go to learn all the ins and outs of it. So that's the biggest thing for scope is that the software, which obviously that's a big difference in investment, right?

22:28 If I just have Microsoft Word or if I have like a three to $5,000 scoping software plus education I have to take. So legal transcription is not something that you can just like walk off the street and do. There is training that I personally recommend, taught by core reporters. I think that's really important, that if you want to be a legal transcriptions, you need to learn from a certified core quarter idealist stenographer. You shouldn't be learning from another legal transcriptionist, in my opinion. So, yeah, that's kind of like how I fit into it and I don't necessarily help people get started. I don't teach people get started in this, but I know the pathway that I took and I think I've been pretty successful for it. So people want to get into legal transcription. I think I have a good pathway, but it also leads them to all of these other things like scoping and core reporting and you know transcript management.

23:12 There's all these other like little niche careers you can do in this field once you learn legal transcription, and I think that's a big difference between scoping and legal transcription. To like scoping, you're essentially editing, right. So how can you edit if you don't know how to type a document from scratch. I think that's what really levels me up as a scopus, because I can create a document from nothing to complete essentially almost complete right. So that means if I get a scoping file it turns out very clean because I can isolate those things out if that makes sense. Wow, okay, so a legal transcriptionist is typing everything from scratch. Doesn't that take a long time? Yeah, it usually takes about four hours for every hour of testimony.

23:54 So the one to the ratio. It takes a while. So definitely not the most automated version, not the fastest version, but it's something that a lot of people need. The amount of work that I turn down on a daily basis is kind of phenomenal, and so that's the thing is, I'm not really we're not taking work away from other core reporters. It's like, essentially, this work just needs to be done until we can amath enough core reporters to meet the need, because there's just too many proceedings happening and not enough reporters that are trying to go around. So you have, I think, just chronically overworked core reporters, and I know you talk a lot about that on your podcast, but that's something that kind of my passion came from.

24:35 I worked with one core reporter. In the beginning he was doing three depositions and now he does anywhere from like 15 to 20 depositions a week because he has back off staff to help him. Yeah, absolutely it's not insane. So it's not that I'm exceptionally special, it's just that core reporters have this insanely tall task to achieve, and I guess the core reporter is like you're just super people, so you're just used to like getting it done, and so you don't know how to ask for help or that help is even available, and so I think that you've talked a lot about why I'm really good at takedown, I'm really good at being in the courtroom, and so I have other people to handle that other stuff, and so I'm the expert of the transcript. I don't do any of the other stuff, but I've isolated my one skill, to be very accurate, just on this specific thing, and that's what I focus on all day long.

25:18 It's hundreds of pages of transcripts, right, like my company, my agency, we probably type over like 200,000 pages a year. So basically, you started as a legal transcriptionist and you got so much work that you needed to find people to help you, and that's why you started an agency, correct? Yes, and I turned down dozens of jobs every day and I don't exaggerate on that, and there is so much work. Is that because you don't have enough staff, like your vetting process, like you have high standards, or how do you find people and determine whether they're qualified or not? For sure and I think you talked about this too in one of your podcasts where you had to sit down with people like have face-to-face interviews with them, which I initially did.

26:00 At the beginning, I looked locally and sat down with people and then I realized that, like, you can have all of this experience and you know you could be a very detail-oriented person, a very organized person, you could be really good at grammar and punctuation, but there's nowhere to hide on a legal transcript. It's black and white and I can pull up a document instantly and know if you know what you're doing or not, right? So when I first started, I would try to find people that were experienced, which there's not a lot of like experienced legal transcriptionists floating around, which I think it's a good thing. Once they get experienced enough, they turn to scopus or to court reporters, like that's the end goal. You know you don't necessarily need to be a legal transcriptionist your entire life, right? So I started like doing getting people that way and I had you know metrics.

26:41 I would try to get people to hit, and now I'm at the point where I do not take people who don't do education. So there's a specific school that I recommend, if I can let you know at the end, if you like, what it is. But it's taught by a court reporter and it literally covers from. You know nothing like about word or legal transcripts or call a quay or Q and A, nothing about proceedings, and it really teaches you. And then at the end of the day it's all about you typing it, sending me to edit and I send you your edit back so you can see it, and we do that like a few dozen times and eventually you'll go from having, you know, 10 errors a page to no errors a page and so you can really see somebody flourish in legal transcription, and not that long, as long as they have good foundational instruction and people to give them feedback.

27:26 And so that's where I was very lucky. I found one court reporter that really took me under their wing and he was just willing to work with me. I don't know what he's on me, but he just really was willing to see me succeed and just we went back and forth like that for a few months and then eventually you know he needed just less and less oversight on my work, which then he could pay me more right, because he's, having spent less time going over my documents, I make more, and so then it turns into like a really symbiotic procedure. It's very like secular right he needs me and I need him, and it's a good process. Yeah, whenever you're talking, I have like a flood of questions in my head and then I forget them. I love that. It's like amazing to me that, like even somebody who works as intricately in this industry as you have questions about it and I either get two responses.

28:07 When I tell people I'm a legal transcription, like oh, I don't care, who would care about that, and then I get people like that's amazing, I could do that, my mom could do that. Like I've always loved law, I've always like wanted to work in law, and so a lot of people just have like this fascination with the industry and I think they have like a seed that can really be planted and like blossomed and we could solve this innate shortage that the industry has, I think, if we talk about it more. The court reporter that you received training from. Is he the one who has the training program that's open to other people? Yeah, so I had two main reporters. One was just always there for me when I needed her and she had some training, and then the other one was the one I was actively working with, because we all know that, like you have to learn the foundations of building a transcript, but then every court reporter has like different preferences, right, or how they do things, especially state to state Like one day I'm working on something from Texas, another day I'm working on something from Georgia, another day it's in New York.

29:00 So I need to really have a strong understanding of like those fundamentals and then be able to balance off of preferences really easily so I can do things the way that that specific court reporter wants it done. Essentially, my job is to make my work look as much like their work as possible, right, so it's about like learning what they, how they like it and how they deal with certain situations. So the court reporter basically like every single contact I've made in the industry has come through her. She had many court reporting and legal transcription boards, like on Facebook and stuff, and just anytime I had a question, anytime I wanted like an audit of my work, she would send me, you know, 20 minutes of something I would type in and she would give me like just detailed feedback, which is so it was so invaluable.

29:41 So now she's the developed a course where it has like two parts. The first part is self-paced modules where you learn about, you know, decorum of the court, different types of proceedings how would you call it, being Q and A, punctuation and grammar. And the second portion is like a practical assessment where you're typing and getting feedback and then, once you graduate, you actually get placed with a company who's looking for legal transcription apprentices and you'll work with them to like further your skills until they feel like you're ready to kind of be on your own. I have no problem with you sharing what, what the information is. I mean, I'm assuming you don't know if that's allowed, but I think that sharing would be helpful for any of the listeners who may want to. No, no, no, that's great. I just didn't. I didn't want to assume.

30:22 I didn't want that to like trump anything, so I just wanted to make sure I was good with you before. So yeah, the school that I recommend is called Urge Transcribe. It has this learn to transcribe and they specifically teach legal transcription. So there's a course called Legal Transcription with Paid Apprenticeship. The CR who teaches it has been certified for well over 30 years in the industry. She really knows her stuff and she's really good at teaching many different learning types, which this is a job that you learn like completely remotely on your own, so she's able to kind of take people on their own and teach them the skills just by like going back and forth. So I'll send you my social media after we're done, but if you search my company name on any social media, I have the link there. I also have like a frequently asked questions sheet that I put together for people that want to look into legal transcription.

31:07 So I try to answer like a bunch of questions and then I do like lives every day. I just got done with like an hour and a half live where I just answer questions like about the industry and about my job and how I've been doing the kind of things that I work on and just try to like Again, just raise awareness about this industry, even if people don't go the way I'm suggesting. I just want to let them know that it's an option so that they can look into it in a way that might work well for them. My life just went out. I know your power is just like. It's so funny when that happens. Okay, I just got my pencil out because I, like I said, whenever you're talking, I have so many things I want to say and then I forget what it is. But so learn to transcribe, okay.

31:48 So you do you talk to some like money and how much you charge, how much you make or how much you recommend, like, because I'm just curious. You know, you said four hours per hour, that's. I mean, how much, how much do you charge for that? Yeah, no, it's great. I would love to explain how that works. So typically when somebody's pretty new, their accuracy is lower. They might be like I don't know a 70 to 80% accuracy on completion of the document. So typically they'll make like a dollar, two dollars a page, like probably around like dollar 50 a mark. It just depends on how much that quarter is making right, because we have some core reporters that are making like 350 for everything and they need to be there, they do the takedown, they need to like paper, their gas to go there. So it's up to the core reporter what they feel comfortable paying.

32:29 And then, once you get more accurate, I charge anywhere from like two to eight dollars a page. It just depends on how quick they need it. What the? If it's like a medical deposition and requires more research, I might charge more for that. If the audio is kind of tricky, I might charge more for that. So essentially for me it doesn't take me four hours to type one hour. It probably takes me like two and a half to three hours per every hour. So let's just break that down. I like to do the math so people can get an idea of like how much they'd be making, but usually for every hour of audio, you're typically going to get about 50 pages give or take. That's like a good average that I've seen. Obviously, if people talk fast like me, it might be more people clock less, it might be less pages, but 50 is like a good round number.

33:12 So let's say you're making $2 a page and you have 50 pages, that's $100, right. So it takes you four hours to complete, you're making $25 an hour. If it takes you two hours to complete, you're making $50 an hour. So that's the thing where, if you can get past the learning curve that legal transcription has which by all means it is nothing compared to the legal learning curve that court reporters go through, but there is one because when you start you're pretty slow and you're also not accurate. But then as you get faster and more experienced, you'll make more and you'll be faster. So that's when you can start making pretty good money, especially for doing this freelance, completely remote. Okay, so you said you could type 50 pages in one hour.

33:53 No, no, I could type 50 pages in, maybe two and a half three. So 50 pages is just about one hour of audio is what I mean. So if you have a court reporter who's in court for five hours, you're probably looking at like 200 pages, 250 pages, right Okay? okay. So that's how I judge. I can easily type anywhere from like two hours to two and a half hours of audio a day. So that's where it doesn't take much time to just amass a lot of work, because if you're in court for a day, that's like two, three days work for me, right. So that's why it doesn't take long to just have a ton of work, even if you're only working for like one or two court reporters. And you don't use AI to help you out. I've heard that it's getting more and more accurate and so, like I don't know, I've just been wondering, like, are people starting to use that and just kind of supervise it?

34:40 Because if you could have it written, even though maybe it's not 100% accurate, but if you could have it as like an assistant just to help speed it up a little bit and then you're kind of proofreading it to the audio to make sure it's accurate, is that something that legal transcriptionists are starting to do? Do you have you heard about that or noticed that at all? For sure? That's like the biggest question I get is like oh, ai is going to replace that. And if you do this work, you kind of laugh at that, because I work for a podcast. Actually, I type all of the transcripts for this one podcast and it's literally just one speaker, super clear audio, speaking into a microphone. Okay, and I use state of the art AI. It's like the top of the line, because it's through this big podcast company that I work with.

35:20 They pay like tens of thousands of dollars every year to use it. You should see the stuff that spits out. It's not faster, it's just not faster by any means. And then, especially, that's one speaker and then you get courtroom with, like people talking over each other, different accents, different volumes, different contexts. It just can't touch it. I mean, maybe in five to 10 years, but for right now it's just not faster. And I just don't think you can comprehend that unless you take down transcripts every day and know all the context that goes on into it and like all the different things that are happening in the courtroom while testimony is being presented, it wouldn't know how to do any kind of formatting, any call, any Q&A, any exhibit marking, any examination marking, indexes, certs, any of that, so you would essentially be using a computer to do.

36:07 I have some more work for you, but the amount of work that still needs to be done is a lot. So personally for me, I find it just easier to type. I actually used to do that for a podcast too Not a podcast, but for a company that does that for podcasts just because I really like to listen to the podcast and I was like I want a court report for them and I would actually type it on my steno machine, obviously a lot faster than typing like every single letter one at a time, because on a steno machine it's not typing one letter at a time, it's just key combinations that produce the words based on the sounds. So I guess what you're saying is that the best of the best AI robot can't really compare to a real person taking down the testimony. I'd so much rather pay a beginner person like a dollar dollar 50 page, knowing that I have to go over it, then use a computer, and that's just because it's so much easier for me to do that.

36:58 And AI is very expensive. If you're wanting to utilize AI in your business, it's expensive to do that. So it's like well, should I put the money into that, where I'm still having to do all of this led work? That's not very duplicatable either. There's only one of me, right? If I'm teaching legal transcriptionists how to be better legal transcripts, eventually they can help me or surpass me, right? A computer will never learn from me in that way. So just right now, it's not something that I think anybody in the legal transcript industry needs to be worried about. Maybe five years, maybe, who knows right, nobody ever knows how stuff's going to go. But it doesn't impact me on a day to day at all. And it does become really advanced, which I actually thought that it I don't know. I mean, I've been hearing a lot that it's like getting more and more accurate, especially with this chat GPT thing.

37:42 I actually just started using it just instead of Google, basically, if I ever, because there's so many things that I want to Google and research and sometimes it's difficult for Google to understand what you're actually asking or what you're actually looking for. But chat GPT actually it's like having a conversation with someone that just knows everything, like having a conversation with Google as a human, I mean, except it's not really a human but it's a robot, but it really feels like it's a human that just knows everything. That's just like an expert on every topic. And I have I literally just started using this like two days ago just for research, or I do a lot of volunteer work and I edit certain write ups and press releases and things like that, and so I'll get it proof read in there and it's actually really it's like amazingly helpful.

38:29 We can definitely utilize it. Like I use chat GPT for my social media all the time, like to write captions and stuff like that it's amazing For like for research. Like I use chat GPT all the time when I'm doing medical malpractice for like research and stuff like that I'll put in a sentence. If I can't get like a particular spelling of a word, I'll put like the whole sentence in there to see what it spits out. But at the end of the day they're still a human processing all of that right. So I think it's definitely an excellent tool. I actually did a video on TikTok that did quite well and it was literally just me asking chat GPT why it can't do legal transcription and the answer it spit out was like hilarious, it just it knows that it can't do it, even if you ask it to. So you should ask it like why can't chat P T replace a court reporter and just like be what it sits out.

39:15 Oh yeah, I totally don't think it can ever replace. No way. And like I. That's why I'm not worried, because I know that we can never be replaced, because the knowledge of putting a transcript, together with the discolored designations, speaker designation, like everything that goes into it, the parentheticals, knowing what should be put in a parenthetical and what shouldn't be, like just that experience is so valuable and it cannot be replaced. But, you know, it is a great tool for assisting with, like it could be a good assistant is basically what I'm saying. It could be utilized. It's not something we need to be afraid of, but it's something that we could just embrace and use it to help us out with anything. I don't use it for my work, but for the other things like you've talked about, like social media and things along those lines it's super helpful with.

39:59 So let's talk about social media for the last couple minutes of this interview. So I personally use. What do I use? Well, my main thing is podcast. So I'm not really super active on social media, although I would love to learn a little bit more about TikTok, and I mean because I do think that social media is an important way for us to get the word out about if we really want to raise awareness. Like what you're doing is amazing. You're reaching so many people through social media because you know how to utilize it, so can you talk about the video that went viral? What exactly were you sharing and how did it get so much attention? Yeah, for sure. I love talking about it so much because I felt like I was this lonely person on an island and I was the only person who loved this as much as I did.

40:43 Like you know, I just found it and it just fit me so well and so I really want to share it with other people, but I was kind of like protective of it, so I didn't really talk a lot about what I did for a while. But now I've been doing this six years. You know I have a business that's very that treats me and my family really good. I feel very optimistic about this industry. So I posted a lot answering like frequently asked questions like how do we get paid, how do you get work, that kind of stuff. And then I started posting like videos of me typing too, because I think you actually mentioned you're a pretty fast, pretty type or two like on the normal keyboard. That's my thing, I've always been a fast type for my whole life and so I just I made a video. I'm like 130, which is what I thought I was the fastest, you are very fast.

41:27 I think you said like you're 120 or something like that. No, I'm 100. Yeah, so that is very fast. I thought everybody typed that fast, but I literally learned to type before I learned how to read. Like it's just something that I gravitated towards at a young age. Yeah, it's super random, right? So I crutch on that a lot. You do not need to be that fast. I usually, if you're over 50 words per minute, you can get this shop done. We use a lot of like shortcuts and macros and stuff to make our job go quicker. But so the video I was doing I was just typing so you could hear me typing which, like the whole ASMR factor, everybody loves that. And then I was just speaking about how I'm a fly on the wall and people don't really know that I even like exist because people like see the core reporter right and they just make it like stops there.

42:09 They don't realize all of this work that has to go in on the back end to like make a transcript and certify it and get it into the record and have it used for judges, orders and, like you know, motions and all of that stuff. It really matters. So I was just talking about that and how, like I don't have any kind of prior education or experience in law, I just have a passion for it and how I love to hear people's stories, because I think a lot of times when we work on these jobs, what people are talking about they've either waited a really long time to talk about it, they spent a lot of money to talk about it, or it's like difficult for them to speak about it and it might be the only time that they ever like talk truthfully about the situation that's happening, right. So I just think it's really my dedication.

42:49 Where my passion comes from is I want to do the best possible job I can for that person on the stand or giving deposition or whatever, so that they can have the best transcript going forward for their case, like completely impartial. You know, I might have my own ideas about who I think is guilty or innocent or whatever. That's part of the fun of it, but like I'm completely impartial and I just want to do a good job for that person and their story so that it can be utilized well for them. Because I think we've all been or heard cases where a lawyer or something is like reading from a transcript and there's like a typo or something and it just it's so awkward on the record like they'll be reading and they're like oh it must mean this right, typos happen, but like if we can avoid them it can be really useful for a case like the outcome of the case.

43:29 Yeah, absolutely. I've spoken a lot about having a transcript manager and I think that's important for freelancers to kind of think about that and maybe invest in one or like have someone who's just like your second half, who you can trust, that will truly take care of your transcripts. I really like I loved working with Natalie and she was great and she was awesome. I just felt like it freed up literally so much of my time. Yeah, there was just like never. It's like never ending work for a court, a freelance court reporter. It's like there's no boundaries. That's why I love working in court so much, because it's like there's a start and an end and I can just forget, like I don't have to worry about it.

44:11 But with freelance, it's just feels never ending. So I always thought about like coming up with a training program or something for people to become a transcript manager, because I feel like the demand would be very high once it became a real thing. For sure, and that's basically what I am. It's like a transcript manager and I just I know how to do the transcripts well, right, so it's an advantageous thing because I can do the transcript well and also make sure it gets delivery done on time and all that stuff. That's awesome, because I thought that I was the only one that had. I was like when I hired the transfer manager, it's like I had to totally come up with that role, the job description. I was like I'm creating this out of nothing, but it's kind of cool that there is someone out there, someone else out there who's kind of created that for themselves.

44:57 That's what you do. It needs to be talked about, I think, for a quarter of me to know that it's okay to ask for help, and I think a lot of them don't give themselves that permission, right. Yeah, it's like we think like, well, I would be the best one to do it. I have to. You know, no one else can do it as well as I can, and that may be true. But I mean, you care about life balance and like living your life and having a life outside of work and being able to be fully present during things that you care about and that you're passionate about, and with people that you love, then it's important to be able to free up your time in that way, absolutely, and so that's all like legal transcriptionist scophists, transcript managers that's all we're trying to do is just like support this career and like these people I love working for core reporters Like core reporters are the most exceptional people I've ever worked with.

45:46 I want to work with them my entire career in any capacity that I can just like the most giving people, supportive people, and I think that we all are just like working in our own independent way, but if we can really team together, so yeah, that's all I'm really hoping to do with social media and drawing people to this course that I recommend, so that you know, maybe they can find love for the industry like I have.