#78 - The Ghost in the Statute: New York’s Ambiguous Authority Crisis

Welcome back to the new season of the Court Reporter podcast.

We are in Q1 of 2026, we are in quarter one of 2026, and we're going to be talking a little bit about the notary test and professional practices, professional development.

So if you're a court reporter, which most of you probably are, chances are you did not become a notary because you wanted to notarize documents.

Chances are you are living in a state that either requires the notary in order to to perform your duties as a court reporter as a part of that certification, or you're living in a state where there's folklore around that and people have made it a custom and have emphasized it to the point where you think it's a law, but it may actually not be.

And that is why most of us are notaries, not because we actually need to be to perform our duties.

So you became a notary because or you.

We believe we became notaries because we needed to administer oaths, certify transcripts, and do our jobs properly.

We thought that that's what the notary helped us to do, or at least that's what I thought, so.

Yet, notary law often feels confusing, overwhelming, and honestly, just a little disconnected from what we actually do in practice.

So in this mini series, I'm going to break down the notary law, specifically for court reporters.

What truly matters, what exists just to pass the exam, if you really need it for your state, and how to protect yourself from accidentally doing something improper without even realizing it.

Whether you're studying for the notary exam right now or you've been a notary for years, this series will improve your clarity, confidence, and peace of mind.

Or it'll be a a good refresher.

Welcome back to a new season of the Court Reporter podcast.

In this season, quarter one of 2026, we're going to be starting with a series about the notary law.

So if you're a court reporter, chances are you didn't become a notary because you needed to notarize documents.

You became a notary because you were told that you need to be able to administer oaths and that the notary is what allows you to do that.

You need to be able to maybe certify transcripts and do your job properly, and that the notary gives you the authority to do those things.

Yeah, notary law feels very confusing, overwhelming, and honestly, just a little disconnected from what we actually do when you take a very close look at it.

So in this mini series, I'm going to break down the notary law.

What specifically does apply for court reporters?

What matters and what exists just to pass the examination?

So basically, like, what do you need to actually understand versus what do you need to just memorize to pass the exam?

Which I personally, I just, I have a little bit of a problem with that.

I. I just don't like that we have to memorize things just to pass an exam when we don't really need to use it, because if we're not using it, we're not practicing.

And if we're not practicing it, we're going to forget it.

And that's just how things go.

So whether you're studying, whether you're studying now for the notary, or you've been a notary for years, or maybe it doesn't apply to you, this series will give you clarity, confidence, and peace of mind around this issue.

Or it might just be a good refresher for you.

Okay, so let's dive into my specific journey with studying for the notary exam.

I'm just going to rewind and, like, talk about my entire experience from day one of becoming a court reporter and getting my notary and just, like, give you an overview of my timeline with regard to the notary.

So, and.

And this is kind of recapping episode four.

In episode four, entitled Avoiding Notarial Errors or something like that, I talked about my story with the notary for the first time.

So this is now adding on to that story.

So first it was, I went to New York Career Institute, which is Plaza College now in Queens.

And it was in person at the time.

I was commuting every day.

And I graduated in 2016 after 13 years.

I mean, 13 years, 13 months.

So 13 months it took me to get from zero to 225, actually to get from just the beginning of theory to 225.

And I graduated in, like, December 2016.

And I honestly, like, it's such a blur.

I don't remember taking the notary test.

I don't remember studying for it.

I don't remember how I studied.

I vaguely do remember another student giving me, like, a manila folder that she had used to study for her test.

I don't remember looking at it.

I mean, I think I like, scanned through it.

Maybe you read it, but I just.

I really don't remember.

It's all a blur to me.

That was such a long time ago.

But somehow, miraculously I passed the exam.

I guess it was really just God's will.

And I don't know, it happened.

I passed the exam without really knowing much about what I was doing or having a full understanding of the notary.

And I was like, okay, good, now I'm.

I'm allowed to do my job.

You know, I was so eager to start working.

I didn't think much of it.

I was just excited that I passed and just jumped into it.

But I always knew deep down in the back of my mind, I kind of knew.

Like, I kind of felt like maybe, am I a fraud?

Like, am I.

Are there things that I really should understand that the notary trains you or prepares you for in this career?

And mind you, I shouldn't really be questioning my.

You know, I feel like in school there are probably.

Maybe there are more thorough schools, or maybe it's just because I went through it so quickly, but I just feel like I didn't fully.

Like, there were just a lot of questions that I had about the career and the field and the industry and the judicial system.

And I just felt like I'm not equipped.

I'm not really, like, the person.

I'm not the right one for this.

I don't know.

Like, I feel like I should have been.

I should get a bachelor's degree here.

Like, there's so many questions that I have, and I don't know who to ask.

Like, you know, so I know we have mentors, but it just felt like there would be questions that pop up.

And I talked about this in the last episode, in the New Year's launch episode about how I would sometimes really not even feel confident in what different types of proceedings there were.

Depositions, EBTs, hearings.

I mean, you know, it's like.

It just felt a little overwhelming and confusing.

And I just wish that there was a class or something that prepared me for all the different types of proceedings.

And.

And there probably was.

And maybe I just didn't, like, retain it because I went through it quickly.

Maybe I just was in memorization mode.

Maybe I didn't have a fundamental understanding.

But it just.

I didn't grow up in a family of lawyers or with people in the law.

I grew up with business, some business family members, and then some doctors and some school teachers.

So it wasn't really like, I'm not that familiar with the legal world.

I never knew anyone who had any problems with the law or really had to hire a lawyer for anything.

Like, I mean, that I know of.

I feel like I was very sheltered in my upbringing.

And, you know, I grew up in a small town, safe town in Connecticut, and I didn't know anyone who really had problems with the law or went to jail or had to, you know, it was just like, not the whole court world.

The whole.

Sorry.

The whole court world.

And the law world was a little bit foreign to me.

I never delved into that.

And I didn't develop a strong interest in it until much later on, until after I became a court reporter.

That's when I realized, wow, this is a really interesting and complex world.

And I really want to.

I really want to be the best that I can be.

I really want to develop myself into a strong court reporter.

Not just a strong writer, but a strong court reporter.

And so I was like, all right, I'm going to use this.

Okay.

So anyway, after, like, at that time, I didn't fully invest myself in studying for the notary.

I passed the test.

I'm working for four years.

Or maybe at that time.

I feel like it was six years at that time.

Now it's four years.

It might have changed, but it's all a blur.

And then in 2019 or 2020.

Wait, yeah, no, it was halfway through 2019, in June or July, I moved to Maine.

That was when Covid hit.

And I had gotten married at that time, and we decided to move to Maine, and we.

So I got my notary in Maine.

It took a couple tries.

They don't require you to take a test, like, to show up at an actual testing center.

They just ask you to fill out a form and pass the test via mail.

So I did that.

I passed the test after a couple of tries, I think.

Yeah, I tried one.

Yeah.

Anyway, I passed the test and I got my notary and started working in Maine.

So now I'm a notary of two different states at that point.

I'm a notary of New York and a notary of Maine.

And then the time comes, a couple years pass by, and I'm still in Maine, or.

Yeah, I was in Maine for two years.

So after about a year, I think my notary.

Oh, so it must have been four years.

So the.

The notary commission for New York is four years.

And I think it was four years at that time.

So after four years, my time's up and I need to renew.

So in New York, you just have to fill out an application to confirm that you still reside in New York or have a business address in New York.

You don't actually have to reside there.

You just have to have a business address there.

And I did.

So I tried to renew.

I tried to contact secretary of state to find out how I can Renew.

I tried to look online for the application.

I tried emailing and calling, and I couldn't get a hold of them.

So, anyway, to make a long story short, the notary commission expired.

And now at that point, I'm a notary of the state of Maine.

And then I was taking some remote depositions.

A few of my clients from New York were aware that I was a notary of Maine and that I was in Maine, and they still wanted to do the depositions.

So with their compliance, we.

We went forward with remote depositions while I was in a different state.

And.

But I was kind of scared because, again, I didn't feel like I had full mastery of that license.

And why, like, being a notary, it didn't strike me as a small responsibility.

It didn't strike me as, like, a little thing that you could just fake it.

It strikes me as something very high responsibility, very important, and not something that you can get away with making careless errors.

So I had this, like, kind of this fear in the back of my mind that I was doing something wrong, and I didn't have a full understanding of it.

So I joined the American Notary association or National Notary Association.

I joined it.

I joined groups and memberships and discussions to try to increase my understanding because there was a time that an attorney asked me for my certification license, and I'm like, what do you mean?

I. I graduated from this school.

Do you want me to send you my transcript to show that I graduated?

Because again, in.

In New York, there's no.

It's not a certification state.

So it's not a state that requires you to get a CSR or even allows you to get a CSR or gives that as an option that I know of.

If it is, please let me know.

But I. Yeah, I don't know anything about that.

And so I'm like, okay, I can.

Yeah, sure, I'll send you my.

My school transcript to prove that I graduated.

And, you know.

But then he clarified and said that they wanted my notary license.

So then I got a little.

I got more scared because.

Because I knew, like, I was just like, oh, my gosh.

I always thought I might be doing something wrong.

And even though they stipulate to allowing me, what if I have.

What if it's like, it's my responsibility.

I'm the one that.

That became a notary and was sworn into office as a.

As an officer of the court, as an officer of the state.

That seems so official to me.

And I was just like, that's a High level of responsibility.

I'm the one responsible.

Even though they stipulated to something, it doesn't mean that I did.

Like, what if I.

If I still did something wrong?

Okay, cool.

Then the attorneys stipulated to me doing something wrong and to breaking the law.

That doesn't make it okay that I did it.

It doesn't justify it.

So I'm the one that's going to be responsible.

I'm the one that's going to jail.

If this is.

If I broke the law.

This is.

These are all thoughts that were going through my mind, what I was thinking when I thought that I possibly broke laws and was doing something illegal.

It's just.

It just seems so vague and ambiguous.

I think this term is going to come up a lot.

Vague and ambiguous.

Yeah.

So it was just like, gosh, why do I not feel like I'm confident in this?

Why do I not feel like I understand my role and my responsibilities?

And anyway, you know, that whole thing happened the.

The New York.

I mean, sorry, not the National Notary Association.

They.

When I called them and asked them, like, oh my gosh, did I break the law?

Like, what's going to happen to me?

They were like, oh, you know, we're not an enforcement agency.

We.

If you did anything wrong, we're not the ones that would go after you.

Like, we're not going to go after people.

So I was just like, hmm, interesting.

So it seems like no one really knows.

Anyway, eventually I moved back to New York and in January of 2023, took the notary exam again.

Because I'm no longer a New York notary.

At that time, I'm only a notary of Maine.

And.

And you can't use your main notary again.

Don't.

Don't take everything I'm saying as fact.

Because remember, this is.

I'm just sharing my thought process before learning what I now know.

So take it with a grain of salt.

Now, this is what I'm thinking.

Okay, I'm a notary of Maine.

I cannot take depositions or swear people in as a notary of Maine when I'm physically in the state of New York, I can't do that.

I don't really understand why.

I don't really understand everything about it, but I know that that's not what I'm supposed to do.

So I sign up for the test.

I think I studied for like 20 minutes total.

I don't even remember if I studied, but I know I had the intention of studying.

But in the end I was like, all right, well, I Mean, I'm just gonna go and do my best because I should have an understanding of notary law.

I mean, after all, I've been a notary in two different states, and I've taken.

I've passed the test in two different states.

That should be enough to signify that I am a good.

That I know enough about being a notary.

I think I have a general, basic understanding of what it entails.

So I'm like, I should be fine.

So I go and I take, yeah.

And.

Oh.

And I've been working as a court reporter for 10.

10 years.

Is it?

Well, now it's 10 years, so at that time, it would have been like seven years.

So I've been working as a court reporter for seven years or eight years.

And by now I definitely should be pretty seasoned on the notary law, since I've been working under the license, under the certification of the notary for this long.

So if I don't, there's definitely a problem there.

So I go, I take the test.

I fail the test.

I go.

I remember specifically thinking, like, what is.

What in the world?

Like, what have I been doing for seven years?

This is crazy.

I don't know the answer to any of these questions.

I, Like, I didn't even bother to count up how many I knew, how many I didn't know to get an idea of what my score might be, to get an idea of whether I passed.

No, it wasn't even worth doing that because there wasn't anything that I understood.

It might as well have been in a different language.

That's the amount of guessing that I did.

So it really got me thinking, like, is this even, like, relevant to the career?

But anyway, I just decided to get a job in court because in court, we do not need to be notaries.

They don't.

There's no swearing in the witness.

There's no need to be a notary.

But so I work in court for two years.

I started off in Bronx Family Court, and then at some point, I was promoted to Bronx Supreme Court, and then I resigned this year.

Well, 2025, March 27th of 2025, I decided to resign because it was enough for me.

I was like, okay, I think I need to go back to the flexibility of freelance because I do so many other things that I'm on a lot of, like, committees, and I volunteer.

I am very active and very involved in my community and in my church.

And so I have a lot of other responsibilities and that I love and that I volunteer for, not just not like responsibilities, but like voluntary things that I love to do.

So.

So I found myself using up all my vacation days and quickly getting to like, quickly using them up for things that I was volunteering for, for visits that I was doing.

Like, it was just, it was just a lot.

I just realized, okay, this is not fitting to my lifestyle, so I'm glad I got to try it and experience it.

But I want to be more free.

I want to be able to do the other things that I like to do.

And I don't want to be restricted by having to show up somewhere every single day from 9 to 5.

Even though I have talked about the benefits that that did provide to me and that I felt in the beginning of it, I really did, there are certain good things about it.

But in the end it just didn't fit with my lifestyle long term.

It wasn't sustainable.

So I decided to take a break from it and I resigned shortly after.

We did the amazing event, the UN International Day of Women Judges event.

That was so awesome because I got to invite so many of the judges that I worked with.

The New York State Unified court system is filled with, with awesome female judges.

So it was great to honor them and to be a part of hosting that event.

But yeah, so I moved on.

Maybe I'll go into what, what I did in the past, like from March until the end of 2025.

Well, technically from April to the end of 2025, I took a little bit of a break from court reporting.

I wasn't working because again, I don't have my notary and I had enough savings to live on and to invest in my business and, and in my, in the podcast and in passion projects and things that really, I do really care about.

I really care about the industry and about the podcast and about having these conversations.

I think it's very important to share because I don't want to everyone else to feel so alone like I felt and still feel sometimes.

But like, anyway, you know, over the past six, seven, eight months, from April until the end of 2025, I went through a lot of ups and downs.

I went through hardships.

I mentally and emotionally.

You know, just the life of an entrepreneur, the life of pursuing something that you like, trying to turn your dreams into reality, trying to turn your passion into a way that you can.

Something you can actually live on.

Because as they say, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.

And what I love to do is have these conversations.

What I love to do is help others to not feel the same way I felt and to feel more connected to other people in the industry, to have more opportunities to listen to other stories, to ask questions, to hear what other people go through and how other people deal with the things that you didn't know how to deal with.

And so that's really something I'm very passionate about.

And really, I really thought that maybe I could find a way to turn this into a full time thing because it really does require dedication and it does take effort, it takes time.

So I, at one point, I even had a team of up to 18 freelancers for different roles that I assigned them to.

I think that was a little bit too much.

But just, you know, to get an idea of how many different moving pieces there are when it comes to operating a media channel, running a podcast, and there are many different details.

And of course, it's not mandatory to do everything to promote the podcast.

It's not mandatory to do certain things.

But for someone like me, who loves to do things with all my heart and go all out and go above and beyond, of course I wanted to try everything.

So I wanted to learn as much as I could by working with different people who had different expertise when it comes to creating content and marketing and sharing messages and making sure everybody knows what exists.

And I don't know, there's probably so many things that I could think of, I don't know off the top of my head, and I'm not, not looking at the Slack channel right now.

But anyway, the point is that I really poured my heart and my savings and my time into this project and came to a point where I really believed that.

And I even had like one dedicated person who was reaching, or actually she still is.

Until recently, I still, I told her to stop because we need to really reflect and tweak our approach.

We need to change the way we're doing things because it's not working.

But it was following a very, like, following the instructions of Lisa, the sponsorship concierge.

That's her title, that's what she's known for.

But she, she was teaching me how to get corporate sponsorships.

I guess there are a lot of shows and podcasts and people who are doing great things, who are able to get those projects sponsored by large corporations who have a lot of funds available specifically dedicated to sponsoring things like this.

So I was following her system, her proven system with my, my assistant who was helping me.

Honestly, okay, though this might be the problem was that I, she was more than helping me.

She was like, I kind of just, like, let her do everything, because I don't know, I just.

I'm managing a team of, like, 18 freelancers, 18 different people, and my focus is on creating the content.

And so she was really just.

I.

You know, we worked together in the beginning to get her trained and get her up and running.

And then I gave her an email address, and she started to reach out to all these large corporations to ask them if they'd be willing to sponsor.

And, you know, there was a whole strategy behind it, but for some reason, it didn't work.

And I got to a point where at some point, I believed that I would not have to return to working as a court reporter.

I can't believe I'm saying this out loud.

I can't believe I'm sharing this with the world, But I'm just being honest.

Like, I didn't think, like, there was a moment where I just really wanted to give it up.

Not because I hate it, but because I know that.

I mean, I don't hate it.

I love it.

But I also know that it is very consuming and it's very draining and time consuming.

And I didn't have my VTM anymore, so.

And I didn't have my notary, so I'm like, I give up.

This is just too much.

I feel like I'm gonna have to go get a doctorate degree in order to.

In order to truly feel less overwhelmed as a court reporter, because there's just too many things that I feel are vague and ambiguous about this career.

And, like, I don't know.

I just think that in the state of New York, we get kind of forgotten about, kind of like not acknowledged, not.

There's not really a place for us.

We're just like this awkward in between.

In between person that is there, there and is important, but is not acknowledged.

So there must be something we can do about this.

But basically, I came to a point where there was no choice but to go back to work because I drained all my savings on my passion project, thinking that it would work and that there would be support and that it would.

Everything would be amazing.

But that didn't happen.

And it's.

That's okay.

It's.

It's okay.

It's been a great learning experience, and I will continue to try different things and tweak and make changes and try different approaches, because this is not something that I can just give up on.

This is something that I really believe in and a solution that I believe our industry has been needing for a long time.

So I'm not going to give up on it.

I'm going to continue.

But I realized that I really do have to go back to work in order to not become broke and run out of.

And go bankrupt.

I don't know if that's basically in order to be able to support.

In order to be able to afford to live in this world and to support the podcast, I have to go back to work as a court reporter.

I have to start taking jobs, which means if I don't want to work full time in court, then that means I have to, and which I do.

Actually, I'm open to working full time in court as long as it's a little bit closer.

And I'm not commuting all the way into the city or into the Bronx.

But since I live in Westchester, I wanted to work in White Plains Court, but it seems like the system takes a long time and they're not really hiring right now or something.

So I am proceeding to apply to go back to freelancing, which I'm excited about.

I'm not.

This is not a complaint.

This is not like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this happened to me.

Like, no, I'm actually really excited.

I think there's a reason behind all this.

Like, everything is happening for a reason, and I can't wait to find out what that reason is.

But it's really exciting to me.

So I'm in the process of going through the motions of going back to freelance, and that includes taking the notary test.

So I wanted to approach it differently this time.

I really decided that if I'm going to stick with court reporting, that means I have to.

I can't be a fraud anymore.

I have to know what I'm doing.

I have to.

I have to become an expert.

Okay, you guys, don't.

Don't scrutinize me.

Like, I'm just.

Sometimes my words are not.

I'm not going off a script right now.

I'm really talking to you guys just like.

Like, we're on a phone call.

This is just.

I'm speaking from the heart.

This is no script, no preparation, just.

I'm just sharing.

So I want to master whatever it is that I'm doing.

I love to just get to a mastery level of it.

I don't like when things are vague and ambiguous.

I don't like when things are unclear.

I don't like to.

I mean, I don't not like to fake it till you make it, but I also want there to be a point where I am not faking it anymore, where I am truly an expert and a seasoned professional and I feel comfortable discussing and answering questions and talking to clients and things like that.

So as I explained in the last episode, I saw a side of me that exists.

And that side of me is that determined, studious, diligent girl that I used to be when I was young.

And I remember my days in school getting good grades, not because I fully understood everything, but because I really made.

Made the time and the effort to study.

And now and then, I saw myself doing that again.

For the notary.

I set aside an entire day.

I spent more than eight hours.

I locked myself in my office.

I purchased a study guide, the New York Notary Study Guide.

It's a whole book dedicated to helping you study for the notary with practice tests and with explanations of the executive law and where, you know, explaining all the, I don't know, explaining everything about it.

And so I studied this book.

Well, I realized that I didn't.

I don't do well with just studying a book.

I don't know where to start.

There's no, like, I'd rather just take a practice test.

But in order to get the practice test questions right and to develop an understanding of them, rather than just like memorizing correct answers, I have to read the.

The book.

And the book contained both the actual law and then a side by side summary of explaining that law.

Using less words.

I wouldn't say it really made it a lot easier to understand.

It just used less words, which didn't help me because when I read the less, sometimes when it's summarized really well, you can fully understand it.

But I did not get that feeling when I read the shorter explanations.

So I would end up having to read the entire law on the left hand side anyway.

So I just decided, let me try using AI.

Let me try using ChatGPT to help me because again, don't judge me.

I just like, I realized maybe this wasn't the best idea.

I don't.

I do not recommend doing this, but for me, the way my brain works is it works a lot better if I can go back and forth with someone and I can do it in real time rather than just like reading a textbook.

So I scanned the entire law portion, not the test, not the practice test portion, but the law portion.

So the first half of the book, I scanned it as a PDF and just uploaded it to chatgpt and I asked CHAT GPT to ask me questions and to test me so that it could kind of speed up the process.

And that study session turned into a very interesting time.

It was really interesting.

Like, I don't know, it took me down a lot of rabbit holes, so I probably should have just stuck to reading the textbook.

But because, you know, when you're going back and forth with a robot, you can ask it any question.

You can ask it to clarify things, you can ask it to explain things, you can ask it to put it in layman's terms and make dumb it down for me.

So I just like to be able to go back and forth and to be able to ask questions, because I have so many questions when I'm studying.

So that's what.

What I did.

And I think ChatGPT caught on to the fact that I really, genuinely want to understand what applies to court reporting about the notary.

So I want to fully understand that.

And he caught on and started to tailor the study session to court reporting.

And then I started to catch onto it, and I said, wait a minute, like, I want to actually pass the test.

So are we.

Is this even relevant for the test, or is this just.

Are we now veering off into just like a study session about the career of court reporting in the judicial system?

So that.

And yes, that's what was hap.

That is what was happening is we were no longer focusing on the notary, but focusing more on the career of court reporting.

So I just was like, all right, let's.

Let's reset and stop.

Stop that, because we need to make sure I pass this test.

And so then we kind of redirected a little bit, and then I was like, at some point, I switched to just using the book and reading the law and doing the test questions.

But I had spent the entire day diving deep into these questions that I had and learning more about the executive law and the CPLR and deposition practices.

And I don't even know.

I mean, I would love to go back through the conversation.

Maybe that'll be the next episode where I can kind of go through all the.

The questions and the conversation that I had with it.

But the point is, by the time I got to the test, I was like, all right, I'm just gonna do my best.

I'm not gonna cancel now.

This is the last test that I could take in the year of 2025.

It was December 23rd, and I had to commute into New York City from Westchester.

So it was like.

It was like an hour and a half commute.

And it was on a day that it was snowing.

It was like a blizzard.

But I Was not about to cancel.

I was not about to.

Like, I was determined.

So I went and I was like, I'll just do my best because I studied for a whole day.

There's got to be like, I've got to have achieved some understanding and some mastery of the subject.

I've got this.

So.

So I go in.

New York is so interesting.

I'm not even gonna get to the interesting interactions I had.

And by the way, I'm not a New Yorker.

I'm not from New York.

Oh, yeah, I told you, I'm from Connecticut.

Okay.

So, yeah, so I go in, I follow their instructions, and I sit down and take the test.

And at the end of it, I.

And I was marking the.

Because I really did try.

I really did make the effort to study for this, and I was very proud of that.

So because of that, I really was curious to find out how many questions I'm guessing on and how many questions I actually knew the answer to.

And so I marked up the ones that I was guessing on and so that I could go back to them and re double check the answer.

And in the end it turned out that I guessed on more than 50%.

Like, it was almost 50.

50.

Like 50% I knew and 50% I completely guessed on 50%.

I, well, when I say I knew, it was like I, I was able to figure it out and had a general understanding of it.

But the other 50%, I'm like, wow, I really expected to know at least 80% because I studied for an entire day.

That's more than I've ever studied before for the notary.

And I studied with passion.

I studied with a purpose.

Like, I was driven to understand it.

Like, I did extra research.

I, you know, I verified things.

I even looked up the cplr and I looked up the executive law, and I just felt like I prepared so much for this and I still only know 50%.

It's not fair.

Oh, so.

And then I was just getting upset because all these questions that I didn't know the answer to.

I don't need to know the answers for the career that I'm in.

I need, all I need to know is how to spell the terms that, like all these real estate terms, all these, like, I don't need to really have a deep understanding of these things and how.

And the fact that we have to take the notary and that they say, Say that agency owners and people say that we have to have a notary in order to pass, in order to work as a court reporter in the State of New York, which is not even true.

The.

The fact that they say that made me, like, it just distracted so much from me actually becoming a good court reporter, becoming a confident court reporter.

Like, I could have spent all that time studying for a csr, studying for the RPR study, studying for something that would actually help me to be a professional court reporter.

Like, not that I'm not, of course I am.

I do my best and I fake it till I make it, but I just.

It just would be so nice to have that kind of test to study for and to spend my time studying for a test that will actually be useful in this field, in this career.

So the notary, the fact that I'm spending all this time studying about deeds and conveyances and mortgages and real estate things and.

And it even brought me down another rabbit hole of thinking, oh, maybe I should be a real estate.

Maybe I should go into real estate.

Maybe I should.

You know what, what else can I use this notary for?

This is so cool that I have the notary.

This is years ago when I was a New York notary and a Maine notary.

And I started thinking, like during slow seasons, I would start looking into other, other career paths as a notary.

I even started, tried to start a notary business and tried to become a notary public loan signing agent and paid for career, paid for courses and paid for, like, invested a lot of time taking courses and becoming a notary public loan signing agent, which did not even work out in the end.

So definitely don't recommend that.

But it just, it just frustrated me that all these distractions instead of something focused for court reporters, considering the importance of our role in the justice system, you would think that there would be a focused exam to give us that qualification to work as a court reporter.

I mean, even hairstylists have licensed.

They have to be licensed in order to work as a hairstylist in the state of New York.

So why not?

Why shouldn't a court reporter also have a specialized license and certification tests that we should pass to work as a court reporter?

Instead they just say, oh, just put them under the notary umbrella.

Just put them.

Just let them take the notary and then that will serve as their license.

But it has nothing to do with what we actually do.

It literally does not even the oath that we administer.

It doesn't come from, like, the authority to do that, doesn't come from the notarial law, which is the executive law.

It doesn't come from that law.

Because that context of no of swearing someone in.

In the notary exam, when they talk about swearing people in, it's really because it's really to notarize a document.

So for us court reporters, we're not notarizing anything.

We're just administering an oath that everything they say is the truth.

Like, it's just swearing someone in, but it's not notarizing a document.

It's not ch.

We don't even check their IDs.

We don't verify their identity.

So I really started thinking, like, is this even.

Is this even relevant for.

Does our authority come from the notary law?

Does it come from having a notary license?

Or does it come from something else?

Does it come from being a court reporter?

So when I looked into the executive law and the cplr, there is no cross reference to either one.

Like, it literally doesn't make any sense.

It's like, here I have.

I have to read what I found.

Okay, so that's enough for this episode.

I think you've heard me talk for long enough, and I will save that conversation for the next series in this mini series about the notary law.

So I hope this was helpful.

And I'm sorry if it was disappointing to some of you.

I really synthesize with you.

Am I making up words?

Oh, my gosh.

Sorry.

Okay, thank you so much for listening to the Quote Reporter podcast.

And as always, I hope that you are having a great day and that we will see each other at the next episode.

Bye.