Horror Stories from the Steno Seat (with a 6-Figure Surprise)

Welcome to the Court Reporter Podcast, the space where court reporters are seen, heard, understood and supported.

I'm your host, Bryn Reynolds Seymour.

Celebrating 10 years as a court reporter in 2025.

This show is here to help you unlock your full potential, achieve the big goals you keep putting off, and step fully into the leader you were meant to become.

Let's get into it.

Hello and good evening everyone.

Welcome to the Court Reporter Podcast and Steno, the agency hosting an event tonight about court reporting.

Horror stories, the unexpected things that happen to us when we finish school and we go out into the real world.

There's so many things that school just doesn't prepare us for.

So I know we've all experienced it.

We may not be able to think of them off the top of our heads right now, but as soon as we start talking about the different topics, we are going to all remember when some crazy things happened to us.

So before we jump into the topics, if anyone wants to participate, if anyone has a story that they want to share, if you think of anything throughout this discussion, just post it in the chat and, or raise your hand and somehow we will.

And we will.

I mean it's a very small group of us just in case a lot of people join, then we'll, we can do hand raising or posting in the chat.

But for now it's like a little discussion that we're going to have.

So, and then before we dive into the stories, I'm going to introduce Steno who is making this event possible and really cares about court reporters and building community in the industry.

So I'll pass the mic to Lisa to introduce Steno.

Hello, I'm Lisa Thomas.

I'm the court reporter liaison with Steno.

I have been a reporter myself since 85 and so I have a few stories to share, but I am here actually as a liaison for our reporters and reporters across across the country.

I recruit the best reporters in the country and so I'm always looking for the, the best reporters that we can add to our group and we're here to support you and, and make your life easier.

What we do is we, we try to cater to your preferences.

So if you have a particular type of job that you enjoy doing, we always try and give you that type of job.

One of the, one of the things that we do is we pay very quickly.

We pay within 10 days, always usually less than that.

So that's great thing.

And the reporters love our turn in system because it's so quick and easy, painless.

It's almost just a drag.

And drop type of situation.

I know myself.

I used to hate to get a transcript done after spending however long I took to get it done and then have to spend hours turning it in to go through the hoops.

And, you know, oh, my gosh.

That's one of the things I always talk about.

Like in.

In the podcast episode, sometimes I mention, in addition to the scoping and the proofreading and the coordinating between scopists and proofreaders, if an agency has lengthy, unnecessary portal submissions where you have to jump through hoops, that's just like, oh, my gosh.

It just makes me so overwhelmed and it just makes me procrastinate and then it ends up being late.

Yes.

So it can be painful again.

Yeah.

So Steno tries to support our reporters, and we're always looking for the best.

So if anybody's interested, please contact me.

Yes.

Yes.

And I. I love that about Steno.

I was.

I shared.

I always share, like, in.

In my Facebook group and in the podcast episodes how I was.

After I resigned from court, I was looking for, like, interviewing individual agencies to really find out, like, who's willing to.

Who really cares about the court reporters.

Because there are a lot of, like, agencies out there that I feel like, you know, just a number.

So I really appreciate that with.

With Steno.

So thank you so much for helping to make this possible and hosting this event.

And now let's jump right into the stories.

So who has ever shown up to a job and you forgot, like, something really important, like your machine or your laptop?

Has that happened to anyone here?

All right, Lisa's hand went up first, so let's hear it.

Oh, no, no.

Actually.

Oh, sorry.

No, really.

It was always in the trunk of my car.

The machine.

I just assumed that it was in the trunk of my car, and I showed up and opened up the trunk, and it wasn't there.

Oh, my God.

I know what happened.

I believe that I was able to.

I was there in time enough to.

To scurry and knew people downtown and was able to get a machine that I could use.

So.

Okay.

Wow, that's.

That's amazing.

Do you guys have, like, a.

One of those steno shops?

That's like a brick and mortar shop.

You can walk in and buy stuff or borrow things.

No, I know.

I think California does or somewhere.

Not.

Not New York.

There's nothing like that in New York, but some states have it.

That was.

I was jealous.

Back in the day.

Back in the day, when there were age, like, agencies, I would get the phone call or we Would get the phone call, like, can you bring me this?

Or can you bring me that?

We always had, like a loan or machine, but there really aren't any more.

It's a shame.

Yeah.

That's like my biggest fear because I would.

I would not know what to do.

There's no backup that I would have.

Like, there's no nowhere I can go grab a spare machine at that moment.

So I'm, like, surprised that that's never happened to me.

That would be horrifying.

Maybe put in your car.

Is your machine here?

I know.

I mean, that's the thing that's like.

There was one time I was driving and I was like.

I had this fear that the machine wasn't in the trunk like it always is.

So I just pulled over to make sure.

It was like, that's happened a couple times.

And it was.

Thank God.

But what about, like.

Okay, so what about laptops then?

Okay, Amy.

I had the blue screen of death at a doctor's deposition.

And I am as died.

So I did write the job just.

Just to my machine.

The blue screen.

Sorry.

Yeah.

You know when.

When the computer dies.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

But I was used to writing to my laptop.

That's where I would read back.

That's where I would do everything, you know, and so I just prayed they didn't want me to read back, and thank God they didn't.

And the.

The doctor was very expensive, so I was not going to have it cancel on my account.

So I just wrote it.

The worst part was because I was so used to writing to my machine that when I got back, thank God, I always did a little digital audio and, like, next to me.

So I had to rewrite it because I couldn't get it out of the machine because I only write.

So that was bad on my part, but that's okay.

That's not terrible.

I mean, nothing bad happened.

Doesn't sound like horrifying.

Well, to me it was because I rewrite it.

You know what I mean?

Like, oh, you had to rewrite it?

Had to rewrite it because.

Why?

Because I didn't know how to get it out of the machine because I was so.

Only I was so hyper focused.

So the woman that set it up for me, like one of my mentors who was amazing, she set up my machine and she says this.

You will always write.

She was very, like, a stickler.

You will always write to your machine.

And that way you back it up.

And I was like, fine.

She said, don't touch these settings.

I was Good with that.

Like, and, and, and, you know, I went so many years on those settings and on that computer.

And the bad, the I guess the bad part was is that my tech people at the office said to me, this computer is going to die.

You're.

You're, you know, on borrowed time here.

And I was always like, you know, freaked out because I thought, well, I was trying to save money.

That was.

I will never, I would never tell any new reporter about saving money.

Just get that new laptop, get it set up properly.

This is your life.

This is your livelihood, you know, and if you have the money, have two laptops.

I'd have two laptops and two machines.

I treated my machine better than I treated like other things.

Like, I remember I traveled for a deposition and I had, you knew, that trap, the hard case that they weren't.

I'll never forget.

Like, my carry on item was my little pocketbook, but the hard case machine was my carry on item because I thought, if I'm going down, I'm taking the machine with me.

Wow, I love that.

Oh, my gosh.

And you brought up a really good point about like, investing in our equipment and our tech and keeping up with the, the innovations and learning, even getting.

We talked about this on the last event that we did that.

The top two tips that Brooke and I recommended are building your team.

And that's an investment in time and money.

And also building up your, like, learning your software, but also the tech and really like getting extra equipment.

Even though it is an investment, it is worth it.

So that is a good, that's good advice for everyone.

All new reporters.

There was one time that I. I'll share this.

It's really embarrassing.

And actually my mentor, Joshua Edwards, he suggested that I don't share it.

But I mean, I can't think of anything else right now.

And it's definitely like, I shared it with you guys.

So you already know.

But when my machine wasn't turning on in court and I was like new in court and I was with the administrative judge, like the top judge, and he's very busy.

And it was like a full house, like full courtroom.

The seats were filled all the way to the back and it was the biggest courtroom and we had so.

So we had a hearing and it was just like us.

It was short.

Thank God it was short, but my machine wasn't turning on and I was so scared and I was frozen and I didn't know what to do.

So I just like.

And we were starting, so I just like tried everything I Could.

To turn it on, and I could not find my.

My charger anywhere.

So I just wrote with the machine not on and just recorded the audio.

And this is not recommended.

Do not do this.

This is not the example to follow.

But that's what I did at that time.

And it was really, like, really scary.

But it.

Thankfully, it worked out, because later on, I.

It was only half an hour long.

And later on, I was able to listen to the audio clearly and write it on my machine, and everything was.

Everything was fine.

But that was crazy.

Like, that is kind of a horror.

Story, and that's why the whole double.

It's expensive to have it, but it's almost like if you had that backup machine.

You know what I mean?

It's.

If I had a backup machine, that would have been solved.

Yes.

Or if I had just been, like, a little bit more confident to just be like, I'm sorry.

I needed a minute to go and take care of something.

And that's what you should really do.

Okay.

Just, like, take a breath, pause, and tell them professionally.

I'll be right back.

I have to.

I have.

I'm having a technical difficulty, but I think what was going through my mind was like, they're gonna think that I can be.

That they should just record the audio, so I'm just gonna, like, pretend that I'm writing.

And anyway, it was good practice.

I was literally writing everything, but the machine was not on.

So good times.

So Teresa has a computer and a charger story.

Yeah, I've got one.

Two separate ones.

I don't remember which one happened first, but I definitely got to a job, and my machine was slowly dying, and I left my charger at home because I didn't have two chargers at the time.

So that was actually back in the day, like, before COVID So a friend of mine, Kelsey, was.

I forget what agency she was working for, but she was like, I've got an extra one if you can make it downtown.

It was in Philly, and I was at 2 Logan, and she was like, if you can make it a couple blocks, I've got an extra charger for you.

So I had to run and go get that charger from her to make it to my second job.

I was able to.

I think I was able to finish the first one.

And then the second witness hadn't started yet, and I was able to make it, but I was very sweaty, and I'm really glad I brought my, like, walking shoes instead of my work shoes that day.

And then.

So that was my charger one.

So from then on, I had two chargers and then.

And then my computer one.

I ended up getting out of my car after my job and I had my bag slightly open and my laptop fell out and it cracked.

The whole screen cracked so I couldn't get anything to turn on.

And that's when I learned about Best Buy support.

And that's when I started up backing.

I started backing up my, my jobs to an external hard drive.

So there was a couple things learned.

I always had an extra space there and then for the computer.

I made sure I backed up everything, like to the point where I still have those backups.

It's been more than seven years, but they are in a drawer in a filing cabinet so that everything's backed up.

Because Best Buy had to like revive my computer to be able to like, it was horrible.

So I mean, I could have, like, I could have imported it, you know, or, you know, but it was in the moment.

I was a. I think I was a baby reporter then too, like maybe a year or two in.

So Best Buy is great.

Yeah, terrible.

I have a, I have a Best Buy actually that reminds me of a, like a shout out to Best Buy because they, like, I think their, their support is called Geek Squad.

And I had a Dell laptop that like, I could not figure out what was wrong with it, why I couldn't connect to Internet, why just nothing was working.

And I called Dell support and they were like, they could not figure it out either.

Like they couldn't help me.

But then Best Buy Geek Squad, I called and they were able to help me in two seconds to figure out that the airplane mode was turned on.

So, yeah, Best Buy Geek Squad is actually pretty good.

Better than Dell tech support was.

Retta had a story of something that happened to her machine.

Oh, good Reddit.

You want to share it out?

But this was when I was a newer reporter too.

I've been reporting for 20 years now.

But I came in from work one day or to work one day and went into the courtroom before our hearing started and our bench was just covered in water and the old gel was up above us and they were tearing it out and they had busted a water pipe overnight.

And so like our recording system was soaking wet.

I don't know how it didn't cause a fire because it was on my machine barely got wet.

But my judge really went to bat for me and told me that they were going to get me a new machine because it could short out at any time because of it getting wet.

And so the the construction company bought me a new machine, so.

Which at the time is, I think, Amira.

So it really worked.

It worked out in my favor.

Yes.

Great.

Wow.

That's crazy that it was just like.

So it was a leak.

Well, it was a.

They busted the pipe above us.

Yeah, it was like a waterfall.

Yeah, it was.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

I'm glad it worked out and they were willing to replace it.

Yes, it really did work out.

They did make me give my machine.

To them, but it was like.

Was.

It an LX or, you know, one of the really old Centura ones?

So I was like, here, take it.

Yeah.

Yes.

Tracy says, I love that the judge had your back.

Yes, she definitely did.

She.

I think it was even her idea, probably.

Judges are so nice to us.

They love court reporters.

Yes.

So anyone have any stories about being late?

What happened if, like, something come up and make you late for a job?

I have one.

If no one else does.

I definitely have one.

Okay.

I. I was up in.

It was above Scranton, and I thought I was going to the right.

It was a new place.

I'd never been to the office before, and I thought it was a two way, like, you know, like cars in opposite directions.

No, it was a one way, and I was in the right lane, and I thought, oh, there's nobody coming opposite direction, so I'll turn left.

No, I turned left into a tractor trailer.

And it was.

I was fine.

I was not hurt.

But the whole town heard it.

And I remember, like, being really freaked out, but I called the office.

I maybe called Amy and said, like, can we let the attorneys know I'm gonna be late?

I just got in a car accident and, like, I had to let.

I had to leave my car, like, on the side of the road, parked and everything, because I had to get it towed.

And the pizza place was super nice.

They gave me free pizza.

And then the building that I had to go to was across the street, and they gave me snacks.

And then I got upstairs to the depot, and they were like, was that you in the car accident?

And they were like, take all the time you need.

But I was definitely late because of getting in an accident with a tractor trailer.

So.

But the.

I mean, the good news was that they didn't total my car.

They paid for the whole thing.

So the insurance company, not anybody in the legal field.

But yeah, that was probably my.

My latest arrival time.

Wow, That's.

That is.

That's insane.

That was pretty bad.

Oh, my gosh.

That's scary.

I have a one That I was heading to an orthopedic doctor depot and it was.

He was kind of in a shopping center almost.

And I stopped and got out.

My machine was in my back seat and I put one knee up on the seat to grab my machine while Mercedes was backing out and trapped my leg between the frame and the door, if you can imagine.

Almost snapped in too, because she kept backing up.

And I, I heard a sound come out of my mouth that I've never heard before.

It was, it was a scream that made everybody come running out of the building and told her to stop, stop.

She kept trying back up.

She was, she had scraped down the side of my car and had pinned my leg against the, the base.

So on the upside, I went to the doctor's office where I was going to take his depot and he examined me right there.

Wow.

That's one of the perks.

And yeah, it turned out okay, but it was, it was a terrible.

I still kind of can my blood drop out of my face when I think about it, you know.

Oh, my gosh.

But if I was late, I'm sure they understood.

Yes, that's for sure.

Yes.

Amy, did you have something?

I do, but mine's not.

It's not when I was a good.

I wasn't when I was a good reporter.

It was when I was a young reporter.

And it was also.

I feel so old when I say my stories, because this was before you had MapQuest and before you could, you know, you had to call the office and say, hi, I'm the court reporter coming to the deposition tomorrow.

Can you give me directions?

And, oh, God.

It was like a nighttime asbestos deposition.

And I just, I couldn't figure out where I was going.

And I was driving back and forth on the same road.

So embarrassing.

I walked into a room full of like heavy hitting attorneys in, in an asbestos job.

It was at night, it was just so rotten.

And I remember the tears were just coming down my face because I just felt so horrible, you know, it's.

And that's why when I also, when I would mentor new reporters, I'm like, you don't have to work.

You can put your GPS on and it will tell you where to go, you know, but there was no excuse for it.

I was mortified.

And yeah, I laugh about it now.

But I don't know, what would we do without gps?

I mean, obviously people did it back in the day, but I feel like I'm relying on them too much.

Absolutely.

I know.

I just.

Everything, it's just, even it's everything.

Even looking things up, we can look on Google.

Back in the day you had to have hard copy books and libraries to like look up every spelling.

But yeah, that was my late story.

Not, not a pretty one.

I'm not proud of that.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that.

And then I see that Michelle has joined.

Hi Michelle, where are you joining from?

Hi, good evening.

I am in sunny South Florida.

So nice to meet you.

Recently I know we've chatted online a couple of times.

Yes.

Yeah, we've got like five different states here now.

What about Kathleen?

I see Kathleen also just joined.

Where are you joining from?

I'm from Kansas City, Missouri.

Kansas City.

Every.

Wow.

We're all from different states.

That's great.

Do you, do either of you have a story or anything you want to share?

Any introductions you want to make?

Okay, sure.

I don't want to occupy the whole conversation because I do have a story.

I am going to put in the chat a link to a, to a what should be like a Wikipedia page for Scott W. Rothstein.

Or you could just put them in your Google yourself.

Back in 2011, the agency I worked for, one of the court reporters there, I became friendly with, she had her writer died one day and I had an extra writer so hey, you know, here.

And we became friendly after that and we've remained friends for years.

But she had a client and his name is William Sharer.

He's part of Conrad Sharer down here in South Florida, which is a very prominent law firm.

And Mr. Sharer is what's called a kingmaker down here.

He's very politically active and he has very high end clients.

And so back in 2011, we had a local attorney named Scott Rothstein and he was very philanthropic, or so it seemed.

He, his name was on children's hospitals.

It was his Rosenfeld, Adler and Rothstein was on the plaque at sports arenas.

They commercials.

You'd watch the morning news for the weather and traffic.

And there's an ad from Rothstein, Rosenfeld and Adler and everybody in town is like, where?

Why did this firm just grow so fast?

He started off as like an employment lawyer.

So jumping ahead, he was arrested for a Ponzi scheme, a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme.

It was on the news.

He had flown to Morocco.

We weren't sure if he was coming back, if he was committing suicide.

At this point just all these explosions are going off.

I mean it was major local news because there were many attorneys that were involved anyway, so Mr. Scherer represented a large number of investors and he filed lawsuit against TD bank because TD bank was complicit.

A vice president there at a Weston branch here in South Florida was complicit with Rothstein for perpetuating this fraud.

They were, he was kiting checks and they just allowed all these red flags to pass through.

And he was getting some kickbacks going to super bowl in Vegas or wherever else Scott Rothstein was taking him on his private jet.

So comes the deposition and Terry, my friend Terry that, who I gave the rider to, got the gig with the agency we were with and she brought me in and we had to be vetted for security reasons because apparently as part, as part of him being arrested, he was also connected.

He had some mob affiliations.

And so he had ratted out a few people trying to get some time reduced or get in, you know, some good behavior.

So there was allegedly a hit out on him.

And so the depot is taking place at the federal courthouse down in Miami, the old federal courthouse, because there's a security system there that can bring him in through the underground tunnels.

And nobody even really knows which federal prison he's being held in.

So the depots are to take place over a 10 day period, continuous 10 days, starting around December 10th of 2011.

And so I, you know, pack my bags to go down to Miami because the traffic is terrible.

I'm about 20 miles, 25 miles away.

I spent the weekend, of course, preparing as much as I could building a job dictionary.

And I go to the federal courthouse.

I'm on no sleep.

I had slept at the hotel right down the street and it was right next to Miami River.

So every hour on the hour, the bridge is going up and you hear bong, bong, bong.

Like no sleep.

And plus I'm nervous.

So I get there in the morning with Terry and I'm going to do the morning session and she's going to do the afternoon session.

And there's about 50 lawyers from all up and down the eastern seaboard.

Anybody who is head of a big firm is there.

So I want you to understand the pressure.

I mean, this is obviously like a high pressure, high interest case.

And I'm of course the last one, security less in the courtroom because isn't that just the way it is with us court reporters?

The last one.

And there's like a general master overseeing this.

And everybody has a time allotment.

Some have as little as 45 minutes, some have as many as four hours.

But nobody had enough time.

And so the pressure is just really high.

So I, I, the last one in, I start to set up.

They bring Scott in.

And I had met Scott a couple of times back like in the late 80s when he was an employment lawy.

So I knew him.

And he's a very gregarious, likable, warm guy, turned into a bit of a buffoon with his, like, he had these just terrible, obnoxious suits that he'd have custom made and he's wheeling around town and not one, but two Bugattis.

I mean, this is the level of fraud that was going on.

So I set up, I swear him in.

And they're doing the bankruptcy because of course, the law firm is now in bankruptcy.

And so the bankruptcy involves all these investors.

So after a very brief, brief background of, you know, his name and that type of stuff, they start in on investors.

So after I swear, man, I start writing and I look over and, you know, I don't know about you all, but I use an asterisk to delete, like the, if there's a mistake, you know, I hit delete or hit the asterisk.

And it's supposed to delete the word.

Well, it's not, it's not, it's just putting an asterisk and whatever junk was there is there.

And I'm like, what's, what's, what's going on?

Oh, my gosh.

So I start writing, right, A little bit more, and it's still doing that.

And I like paragraph.

Nope, it's just giving me the garbage for paragraph, you know, PA or what.

And I'm like, what, what is.

Now I'm panicking.

Like, what is.

Like I'm not under enough stress.

What is going on?

And so now they're, they would open what I call the Israeli phone book and start reading names of investors because most of them are out of Israel.

And you have no idea where one name starts or one ends.

And I'm like, I, I can't look at my screen.

I have no idea what's going on with my Eclipse.

I've been on Eclipse forever, since it was basically X Scribe and just basic functions aren't working.

I've never had this problem.

And of course it throws my, my game.

I'm just like, all right, all right.

So I've been doing this a long time.

I'm just going to write.

I'm going to write to my writer.

I have to write.

I have to write what I hear.

I see they have a list of those names.

I'm going to make sure I get that list I will make sure I get that list and I will go back to the hotel room and I will retran this and I'll call Eclipse and.

All right, so we finished the 30, 35 pages.

Thank God it wasn't super long.

Of all the names of investors.

And we go into his depot and luckily that became much easier.

It was just your basic entertaining.

But like, what is this guy doing.

You know, with all this fraud?

And so I, I called a good friend, Emily.

She came, she brought her laptop and she agreed to be my scopist.

Because at this point, I know I'm.

They want everything daily.

Like they, they can't even wait for this, you know, here, here, here.

I know it's a complete mess.

And they're, they're waiting for this.

I mean, we have news cameras outside waiting for this.

And so Emily comes, she gets on the phone with Eclipse.

Long story short, there was just some bug in the version of Eclipse that I was running.

And I edited what I could on her tr.

On her computer, I had that list of names.

While she's troubleshooting on my computer, I'm editing on her computer.

And we get it done and it takes a really long time.

I'll send it to the proofreader, it comes back and here's the next glitch.

It comes back from the proofreader and I open it from the email, which you're not really supposed to do.

You're supposed to download, you know, download the transcript and then move it into Eclipse.

But I.

And so I'm doing all the corrections or so I think I go to send it out.

It's like, you know, eight o', clock, they're waiting for this.

And none of the corrections have saved because in my fluster and in all my stress, I wasn't in a Eclipse document.

I just opened it from an email.

And this is back in 2011.

I think now Eclipse might be a little bit different where if you open an attachment in an email, an Eclipse ECL file, it may automatically move.

And sometimes back then they did.

And I think that's, as an aside, part of the reason why back like a dozen years ago, we had people screaming about Scopus doing a terrible job.

I think it's because they were sending them in an email and reporters didn't know you had to download it, copy it, move it into Eclipse and then open it.

So if you do an all E on Eclipse and your file isn't there, you are outside of Eclipse and it's asking if you're not Saving it.

It just reverts back to its original.

So sorry to digress.

Anyway, finally get the transcript out and I'm just convinced they're going to fire me.

I mean, I've just never been under so much stress and pressure in my 30 plus years of reporting.

And I went in the next day and I still hadn't slept, hadn't really eaten.

And, and one of the attorneys, Michael Goldberg, walked up to me, said, you did a good job on that transcript.

And I was like, just ready to burst into tears, like, thank you, thank you so much.

And it got better, you know, but I was so exhausted and tired from what had happened.

I was so far behind the eight ball on that first day.

I had a migraine the second day.

By Wednesday I had full blown bronchitis from a cold that I was almost over with.

Started this depot.

But anyway, let me tell you how it ended because it did end it on a good note and why I wanted to join this for newer reporters.

Things are going to go wrong.

They just are.

And I feel like, because I've always tried to be generous and kind to my fellow reporters, that I was kind to Terri and generous by giving her that machine.

And she gave me this opportunity to come in with her and make this incredible money.

I mean the money was incredible.

It was an 0 and 15.

Wow.

We charged overnight rates and everybody paid.

And Emily and I split it again, being a friend, we right from the get go, when I called her, I'm like begging her.

She has little kids.

It says right before Christmas, please give up your Christmas and come help me.

This is, I'm, I'm dying here.

I'm literally like, this is the worst.

And she did and we split it and that was great.

And so just to stop you for.

A second, for those who don't know, just for the listeners who don't know what it means.

Owen, 15, can you share, like how much, how much did you make from one day at that job?

Like an example of how much that is.

I don't know if I can tell you per day, but I know that at the end of it when all the page.

I guess my paycheck for 10 days for the depot was somewhere between 35 and 38,000 because I split that with Emily.

So it was really like 70.

And that was just half a day.

So the total for mine and Terry's because she was afternoon was a good 100.

And after the depos, before the case settled, they did a bunch of mock trials.

So we were getting Saturday Pay because these would take place at a hotel.

They put out like a Craigslist ad for jurors and they have consulting company.

It was a man who's a psychiatrist and his daughter who ran the team.

And they would bring in potential, you know, mock jurors and, and would set up these different scenarios and they wanted all that reported.

So we did that for three months and made quite a bit of money off that.

I mean, this is a once in a lifetime job, this job.

So it ended well.

I didn't get fired.

I had a good support system.

I had networked.

I was nice and generous and kind to my fellow reporters.

I've made other mistakes.

I've forgotten my machine.

I, I've done that.

And guess who came to my rescue?

My good friend Emily.

She brought me a machine and that was on the I covered flow rider versus Celsius trial down here in South Florida.

And that was very interesting.

That was a couple years ago and she helped me with that.

So I don't want to brag about the money.

It's really just network with your fellow reporters, be kind and, and good things do happen.

So that's, that's my story.

I, I hope it was helpful.

That was a really good one.

Thank you for sharing that so detailedly and going into depth.

That was very, very helpful.

Attorneys were disbarred.

Attorneys went.

Attorneys, plural, went to jail.

There were, there was murder involved in this.

In this case.

It was a high profile, very.

One of his associate lawyers ended up dead.

I mean, it was just crazy stuff.

Highly entertaining, highly stressful, but highly recreative, lucrative.

Wow.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for sharing.

That was so amazing.

Did anyone have any thoughts that came that were sparked from that story?

Yes, Amy, I do.

I think, Michelle, I love your advice.

I think.

Thank you.

I can't agree with you more.

And you know, I say this, Tresa is on here and thank God for her.

And I will say this forever.

She's my angel.

Always was.

We both at different points of our career.

I reported, I started in 1986 and then I, and I reported for a while, got married, had children, got divorced, got back into the industry more in an administrative way.

Then I started reporting again.

Met Theresa, it was back and forth.

She was my scopist.

She was a reporter.

I was her scopist.

And I always say she was a wonderful sounding board.

Always is, always will be.

I think the one thing I will say, I know we're supposed to be talking about horror stories, but one Thing I will say is camaraderie in our industry is so important because we are all over the world.

And, you know, I had her.

I always, will always feel that she had my back.

And I would give her, you know, anything in my life.

And you're right, I've offered my machine and I will do it.

I will still do it.

You know, it is.

And I, and I do believe it was like my most valuable possession.

It was my livelihood.

I was single mom, it supported my children, you know, But I could not have done this career without some of the best friendships and court reporter friends.

They never go away.

I mean, I have them on Facebook.

I've been with so many big box agencies, and they are just incredible.

So you're right, it gets better, no matter.

But I think it is.

So my encouragement meant for new reporters would be, yes, have that person.

You need your person.

You need several of your.

Your persons.

And, you know, and I thank you, Michelle, because your story was so amazing and you sound like just this amazing reporter and you have an amazing support system.

Oh, thank you.

And I just think that that is so helpful.

And I just had to jump in and say that.

Yeah, just I remember being a new reporter and I mean, I had transcripts that, you know, looking back, I mean, this is before, like, I started.

I was 20 years old and I started in 1986.

We didn't have proofreaders and scopists like you were saying about books.

We looked up everything and I know there were errors in there.

As good as I try as I was and tried to be, you know, always, always have to improve.

And hopefully I've.

I've learned from my mistakes.

I would take things to heart if somebody told me, hey, you're not proofreading well, or, hey, you need to make sure you're not late.

You know, I took that to heart like, okay, I need to listen to that because they're.

They're telling me something that they've.

They've noticed that I'm doing wrong.

And, you know, sometimes it's hard to be on time in this job back before COVID and all the traffic and all the delays and getting lost and not having Waze or Google Maps or whatever, you know, you'd call a secretary and they couldn't tell you where they were.

You'd have to figure it out.

But live in equipment, we have to, like, lug around with us everywhere.

To all.

Yes.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

What were you going to say?

I was done.

I monopolized the conversation enough quiet and listen?

No, but yeah, it's such a good, such a good point about camaraderie, about networking and building connections with other reporters, because I actually gave a speech about this at the National Verbatim Reporters association in Texas.

Or was it Texas?

Anyway, it was last year, and it was about basically, like, networking with other reporters and the importance of it, whether on or offline, like, building connections and being willing to help each other out.

And I always share about that Boston reporter that gave me her Daisy mics, too, when I was in court and I didn't know how to deal with the sidebars and everything.

She came from down the street and, like, brought me her Daisy mics and was just so willing to help out.

And she also had, because she had covered the job the day before me.

So she went above and beyond.

And New York reporters don't really do this, to be honest, like, with each other.

They don't really go the extra mile to share the names and the spellings and how.

Tips on how to know who's, like, how to designate their.

Who's speaking.

And, like, you know, she told me about what they looked like.

She told, she told me so many details to prepare me, and I was so moved by that.

So I was always willing to help her and, like, eager to help her with anything after that.

So it's, yeah, it's a good, good lesson.

And we are, even though we're talking about horror stories, but it's not just the horror stories.

It's the solutions.

It's how we, how we come out of them alive and better than we were before growing as reporters.

So thank you so much for bringing that up, Michelle, and for expanding on that, Amy.

And yeah.

Lisa, did you also raise your, you also wanted to.

Well, I was going to say, you know, since COVID and we all started getting used to being remote and we used to see each other a lot more.

Everybody used to see each other a lot more, more.

And now it can be a very alienating profession, very solitary if you're, you know, you just hop on for a zoom call and then you don't see anybody.

So I think it's important to, to communicate with fellow reporters.

And I always, I always tell our reporters, call me.

If you have a good day and you want to talk about it, call me.

If you have a bad day and you want to talk about it, call me.

You know, I love to hear and be there for people because sometimes you just need a little, little support and somebody to listen.

I get Those calls sometimes, because I get the main switchboard here at Steno.

And when it's a reporter, I will not jump off that phone.

I will stay on as long as I have to because I know what it feels like to be that reporter.

If they're lost out in the field, if they're running late in traffic, I always say to them, your safety is the most important thing.

We will deal with everything else afterwards.

You know, we are here for you.

Just take a deep breath and know that we are here for you, because that is critical.

Critical.

I always say the court reporters are our bread and butter.

The court reporters are the talent, and the court reporters make or break you.

So, you know, everything else is important.

But the reporters.

It starts with us, you know?

Absolutely.

So true.

Oh, my gosh.

There are so many other topics that I really want to jump on, but we have 10 minutes left, so I'm going to bring up one more topic, and that is about controlling the room.

So one of the biggest, like, nightmares.

One of the reasons that court reporters.

That court reporting is one of the most stressful careers is because we don't have.

Technically, we don't have control of how other people act, right?

We can't control how they act.

So it's so frustrating for us because we want them to follow the rules so badly.

Because our job and our success and how well we do our job and how accurate we're writing depends on how people are acting, right?

So, yeah, I think that's common.

A common horror story for all of us is when they just will not follow the rules and they just, like, talk over each other all the time.

Or what about those, like, really thick accents?

Sometimes there are, like, even doctors giving medical testimony, giving, like, technical testimony with, like, the thickest accents that it's so hard to understand that sometimes I want to just stop the deposition and require that they get an interpreter for.

Even though they're speaking English, but it's like, I can't understand what you're saying.

So let's talk about that topic.

How do you guys deal with.

With the emotions that you feel when they're not.

When you're not able to control them?

We want to control them, but we can't.

No matter how many times we interrupt, no matter how many times we try to tell them, it just like, what do you do when they just, like, don't listen?

I know.

I.

My thing was.

I mean, I'm retired now.

I would be like, hands up, you know, hands off the keyboard.

I would say one at a Time.

I will take a break and come back.

You need to get yourselves together.

You know, it didn't always work, but, you know, yeah, sometimes.

And sometimes my behavior wasn't great.

I. I will admit, you know, I. I would get tense and nervous and upset, and sometimes I would just sit through it and just pray that I could go back and make it look nice in a transcript.

Well, I have a tip for you that I used when I.

When I realized there was a low talker.

As Seinfeld fans will recognize, low talkers, just real quiet.

If I knew ahead of time, if I.

In the room with them before the depot and I could hear, I'm gonna have a hard time hearing them.

The witness, I'll say, you know, I can hear that you're a little bit soft speaker.

And I'm.

I'm a little bit deaf.

I'm.

I'm a little bit hard of hearing, so if you don't mind speaking up for me.

And then during the depot, when they would get low again, I just lean in like this and they would remember I'm deaf, and they would speak up.

That's a good one.

I love that.

That's good for introverts, for, like, because I tend to get a little shy and a little bit like, okay, I'll just deal with it later and fix it later.

But then it's a nightmare because, you know, you're trying to figure things out and it's adding hours of work, too, and stress.

So.

Yeah, but that's.

That's.

I love that.

I think for myself, it depends on which situation I'm in.

I do cover all civil and mostly depots, but I do find myself sometimes in the courtroom and depending on the judge and how I can.

Most of the judges, I know at this point that I'm in front of, so I kind of know what to expect and I know who controls their courtroom and I know who doesn't and what the rapport is with most of the judges I do work with.

So I was just in trial a couple weeks ago, and, you know, the attorneys start arguing with each other, not to the judge.

And so I always turn to the judge first, since it's a judge's courtroom and.

Your honor, can we have one person speak at a time?

Your honor, can we please have the witness speak up?

Your honor, can we please have the attorney read the quoted material at a speed takeable for the record?

Because then I'm not taking them on.

And it's really the judge's courtroom, and they're the power there.

And nine times out of 10, they appreciate that and it helps.

And the last judge I had a couple weeks ago, she thanked me.

She's like, I really liked working with you.

You really kept these guys in line, like, well, thank you, you know, for letting me in a deposition setting, especially like with the witness, because they're, you know, they're nervous or they, they don't know.

And the attorneys, let's face it, most of the time they're no help either.

You know, they, they every once in a while you have a rare bird that, that is helpful.

But usually I'll say, especially with zoom.

Excuse me.

You know, Mr. Jones, you are speaking so fast that it is coming over garbled on the zoom.

I need to be able to understand each and every word.

Say whatever you want to say.

Say it as long as you want to say it.

Slow down the tempo.

That helps for about five minutes and then go back to.

I know they need 350 words a minute, but those are a couple of my tips.

But keeping yourself calm, which is almost impossible to do, and not getting all like, please slow down.

You got, you know, like that high pitched, you know, that only my cats can hear voice.

If you come across as more like the school teacher and breathe and speak in the slow voice that you want them to speak in, that can help again for a few minutes.

But it is, it is tough.

Yeah, that's such a. Yeah, it's, it's really important.

I've always wished that the schools would like, kind of implement that in our education, like how to build that confidence, how to practice, like speaking up.

But I guess that's just something you develop, you know, as you get more experience in the field and you take ownership of your work and, you know, you're also taking ownership of your self care and knowing like, I'm not going to force myself to suffer through this later, but I'm going to learn how to step up and just like, you know, control the room.

So, yeah, I would love, I would.

I would love to give a course to reporters about reading the room.

Because, see, and now I'm on the other side.

I get the messages back from the attorneys.

So sometimes you have to be careful.

Like if.

What do you do, Michelle?

I love your approach.

What do you do if you sense that this attorney is not going to deal with that?

Okay, yes, yes.

If that attorney.

If you sense that that is not going to go over.

I try.

Like usually it's, it's trying to capture multiple people speaking at once.

So usually What I'll do is it gets, you know, now I'm not making a record.

It's just kind of a free for all.

Excuse me, Mr. Smith.

There are multiple people speaking at once.

The last thing I have is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, read back what I have and let them take it from there.

And if it, hey, it happens where they just are just so acrimonious and then they get multiple crosstalk, I mean, that's the last thing I want to do.

But if it's just, if I've asked them politely and professionally and I've stopped them a few times now, I'll always get the witness.

They're the sworn, the sworn person.

So, and I've said that before, look, if, if you're going to keep talking on top of the witness, I'm only going to keep writing the witness because I have to take down their sworn testimony.

So I'm here to make the record you create.

I'm here to write the record you create.

So I'll do it any way you want.

But I, if it's, if there's multiple people speaking at once, then I will revert to just taking down the witness.

Are you okay with that?

You know, what are they going to do at that point?

Fire me?

Okay, well, I'm just doing my job.

I'm trying to do the best I can.

I'm trying to handle it professional.

But, you know, again, this comes with years of experience.

I can remember back when I was only in this for a couple of.

I didn't speak up at all, of course, you know, you're just nervous and these people are so much older than you and, you know, so yes, you do have to read the room.

But also there comes a point where you can't be abused either.

You know, there, there's a few instances where people are just out of line and abusive and you don't have to take abuse from anybody.

So.

But you have to temper that with, well, is this abusive towards me or is this just guy advocating for his client?

Because of course you have those situations where it's very acrimonious, emotions are running high and it really isn't personal towards you.

It certainly feels like it, but.

But it's not.

So, yeah, you do have to read the room.

And there, there's only been one time where I have walked out of a room, like you said, Amy, where I took my hands off the machine.

I had asked them three times.

We had been on the record for 18 hours, not at one sitting, but over two days.

And it was two forensic accountants.

It was all men in the room.

Both.

Both experts were there.

There were about four attorneys in the parties, and they were all from.

From New York, where I believe Brent is from.

So, you know, that New York attitude and bravado, and they're all, you know, macho.

And.

And after I told them, like, it's like 4 o' clock on the second day.

And, you know, I now at like 17 hours on of writing, and I'm like, look, guys, I got about 45 minutes, an hour left in me.

I'm actually in a lot of pain.

So, you know, let me know, like, if.

If you're going to be finished or not.

And so now they decide that now's the crux of the case and they're all going to start objecting and the witness is going to start answering.

So it's question.

Objection.

Excuse me.

I got the question, I got the objection.

I need you to start the answer over.

Next question, same scenario.

Excuse me, I need one at a time, please.

You know, state the question again.

Third time now.

I'm like, okay.

I held up my hands.

I'm like, we're off the record.

And my calm voice.

We're off the record.

And I'm taking a break and I push my chair and I get up and I walk to the door and I got to the threshold and I turned and I looked over the whole room.

And when I come back, we will have a question, an objection and an answer, one at a time.

And I walked out.

And I didn't know what was going to happen.

I knew I was either going to get a call and a complaint, I was going to get respect and what I asked for.

And thirdly, I didn't care which one of those scenarios happened.

I was done.

I had been doing my job 18 hours.

This was getting abusive.

And I walked back in and he asked one more question and we were done.

And I ran home and I listened to that audio of what happened when I left the room because, like, I want to know.

And he.

I heard the attorney say, she's right, she's right.

And I'm like, okay.

And I called my boss and I'm like, because I, you know, here's what.

And we were covering for another agency, which is even worse.

Like, you don't want to do that to a networked agency that your boss is covering for.

But anyway, guess what?

It worked out fine.

And life went on.

And here we are.

Yeah, I find that they actually normally do appreciate that assertiveness.

Because in the end, it does protect the record and they'd rather have an accurate record than only the witness's answer or.

I don't know how well that would read, how well that would go down for them.

So I think they do appreciate it.

Like I've been told by the.

There's one female attorney who's also a judge.

She was always so good at.

The attorneys in New York are not good at enforcing the rules at all or even preparing their witnesses.

I'm so sorry to say that on the air, but.

But in general, that's just how it seems.

Except this one, she was so good at it, and she would be.

She would always, like, enforce it and stand up for the reporter because she had us in mind and it was really great.

But they always would say that they appreciate when we do that because they're not doing it.

So, anyway, thank you all so much for sharing all these amazing stories.

We are doing a series, so I.

It feels like the next topic should be about controlling the room or reading the room.

I don't know if you guys have any suggestions, but I would love to hear your suggestions.

We can always send out a.

A poll or.

Or if anyone has an idea right now.

We can.

We can definitely take ideas, but.

But this has been such a great discussion, and I hope that all.

Everyone who's listening to this episode will feel the benefits and understand, you know, that things can go wrong and it's okay.

It's going to be all right.

In the end.

There are, you know, nothing's going to be perfect, but we get better as we go and we learn from our mistakes and from the.

The things that seem like horror stories in the moment.

But it's really just our emotional, like, response to something that seems like we're gonna die.

But actually, there's always a solution.

There's always a way out.

So I hope that that was clear through this episode.

I think everyone's stories made that very clear that everything is all right.

Right.

So if you.

If Michelle, if you could just at the end or after this, maybe you can send me.

You could be, like, a featured guest.

We could put your headshot in there and everything.

And you can send me your info where.

Where people can reach out if they want.

I'm so humble.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, it was so great having you.

Thank you for joining at the last moment.

I enjoyed this.

Thank you for letting me talk.

Like Amy was saying, like, we don't get to see anybody, so.

Boy, when I get a chance to talk, boy, I just don't.

Shut up.

Well, there's so much we have like, bottled inside that we never share with others because our family and friends, they don't understand.

Only court reporters understand.

And so.

Well, please do go Google Scott W. Rothstein and if you, if you have like YouTube or something, there was an American Greed, that series, American Greed, they did a.

It's old, but they did a story on him.

So it's.

It's hot.

Just because he's an attorney is just so interesting.

Yeah, well.

Oh, yeah, I need to save this link so I can go to it later.

I don't mean to interrupt.

Is anyone going to the NCRA conference?

Who is Tracer and Teresa Medicaidis on this call?

And.

And I am.

We'll have a booth there.

Oh, okay.

I'll have to stop by and see it.

I'll be there.

So.

Oh, yeah.

Any closing words from Steno?

Trace has been quiet.

I couldn't find the off mute button.

But thank you guys so much for joining us.

Been really great.

I loved this session.

I loved hearing from everybody.

This is exactly what I love about this platform.

This, you know, this webinar, this podcast, because we all get to share stories and I feel like that's how everybody learns.

And you know, Amy was my mentor.

And so having a mentor and somebody that you can lean on makes a difference.

And everybody's like, here was my problem and here was my solution.

Is so nice to hear that you're not alone.

I think that's nice to hear also.

So I just want to thank everybody.

Thank you, Brian, for hosting and for everybody for sharing your stories.

Thank you.

And for anyone who joined late, I know it's not many of us, but for anyone who joined late, Amy, Lisa and Teresa are from Steno, which is the agency.

It's a nationwide or is it not, is it worldwide now agency that supports Court reporters and helped make this possible.

Actually, this was your.

Your guys idea.

So thank you for, for making this possible and bringing this, bringing us all together.

So hopefully next time we're going to try it maybe on a different day to see if more people can join because Sundays, you know, Sundays are a little, little tough for some people.

So thank you all so much for joining and we will see you on the next one.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

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