98 | Navigating the Highs and Lows of Court Reporting Careers

Hello, we're on the record in the on the Court Reporter podcast.

Today we are here with.

Hello, my name is Leah Willisdorf.

I'm from Australia and I now live in London.

I've lived there since 1995.

I was only going for two years and I'm still there.

And so some people like to say that I'm still on the.

I'm on the longest working holiday ever.

Amazing.

I've been to Australia, I've been to Cairns, Ayres Rock and oh, Sydney.

I'm so I'm from Brisbane and that's.

Cairns is in Queensland.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

You've been to my state.

Yes.

And I ate kangaroo.

No, you're right, you're fine.

You can buy it in the supermarkets.

It's fine.

Very good.

Okay, so tell us.

So you're an international real time reporter.

First I'd love to ask like your story of how you even got into this profession in the first place.

So back home growing up, you're probably too young and you're videographer is probably too young to know of a show called La Law.

I used to watch that with my mum and I would see this bored looking woman sitting underneath the judges tapping away on this weird machine and she didn't know what it was.

So she said to ask my secretarial studies teacher.

So I did and she had a couple of years before, had a student who also became a court reporter.

And so she came to school with the machine and showed us everything and then.

And that's when I knew that's what I was going to do.

15 Wow, that's amazing.

And what made you want to do it?

I wanted to be the bored looking woman.

Really.

I just thought the machine.

I just fell in love with the machine.

Just touching it, that's the key.

How do you know what you're pressing sort of thing.

So how have you been able to travel the world as a chore porter?

Like how did your career evolve into real time international?

So real time's always thing in Australia and it still is.

It's just a given that you do real time in Australia.

So I worked at home for three and a half years and then I came to England for two but now it's 31 and in Europe real time is kind of expected as well.

So because I do a lot, most of my work is American depositions.

So they come over to Europe to take evidence from the European witnesses back.

And it's normally it's not like med mail stuff or road accidents or anything.

It's high end corporate stuff, farmer stuff.

So the real time, like I say, that's expected.

And also in international arbitrations, always expected, more often than not.

And real time, a lot of people don't want to come out of that comfort zone because it is scary.

But once you start, you're kind of like, why didn't I do it sooner?

That adrenaline rush is nothing like it.

Even now, after all these years, was.

There a moment that you went from regular reporting into real time?

And what, what was that moment like?

I think when I first came, I didn't do any real time at home because I was a fledgling and it was three and a half years, but as soon as I came to England, I was just straight into the real time.

How did you feel?

Like, what was it like when you had your first real time assignment?

Or is it kind of a blur now because you've done it so many times?

I started writing for myself and so that's what they always say to people, write for yourself.

So you can see your word boundaries and all that sort of thing.

And when you're doing that and you're watching your own screen, you're like, holy dooley, look at me go.

When you say doing it for yourself, you don't mean just on your own laptop, right?

You mean set it up on a separate device so that you get the practice with the technology?

No, no, I'm just talking first up, just on your own laptop.

I think nowadays most.

Well, at least from 2015 on, that's when I went to school, they teach us from like how to write real time.

So we're always writing real time on our on our own devices.

Actually, Cindy said to to set up a separate device.

So that's a way to practice.

Yes.

Then you'll be get to learn to troubleshoot that if anything happens with that as well.

But then when you have got those iPads set up and you're seeing the lawyers looking at it, you're like, oh my God, oh my God, am I doing it?

And it's addictive.

It really is.

And you think, why didn't I do it sooner?

Because.

Right, because you're making what, three times the amount?

That's another thing people need to remember that with the real time and the rough, one's a product and one's a service.

So I always price mine differently.

A lot of people price them the same.

But I just think anyone can do a rough, but not everyone can do real time and readable real time.

You know what I mean?

It takes preparation and it takes time to become real time proficient.

What would you say is the best way to do that?

Because it feels like such a daunting task to build your dictionary and make it perfect before you start doing real.

Time and it comes back again.

Writing for yourself, because you will see your word boundary issues and you need to know what's in your dictionary, like your prefixes and your suffixes and all that sort of thing.

And fingerspelling is a big thing as well.

So would you say just learning the principles, like when you said prefixes and suffixes, like how those things work and how they're set up in your dictionary?

Because like my mentor Joshua Edwards, he says that I should, should go through the whole dictionary and add every single word in the English language, which kind of makes it feel overwhelming.

I don't think you need to put every word in because if you've got your prefixes and your suffixes and your root words, you should really be able to write anything.

Do you see what I mean?

If you break down the words.

Okay, so how have you dealt with the profession of court reporting has one of the highest rates of burnout as a profession.

Feeling worse because the court reporters that do exist have a lot of work and are trying everything themselves, like not really delegating or have bad experiences with Scopus and running their team.

So how have you dealt with that and any advice that you can give?

I think the scope is people finding a good Scopus that can take time.

My scopus is actually she's British and she's an ex reporter, so that worked quite well.

She was easy to find because I knew her and she was Covid.

So we were all working from home and she just, after Covid, she was like, I'm fine to just stay at home and do that.

But she used to come with me on jobs on big arbitrations.

So if we did an arbitration in Paris and we had say 30 hookups for real time, she'd be in the room scoping, which was beneficial because if anything went down, if an iPad or two went down, she could get up and go and get them reconnected sort of thing.

But with the burnout, I think that just comes down to our region is different because we probably don't work as much as the America.

You could probably do five days a week.

Here we do five days a week.

If it's one case, there's not that volume of work.

So you can sort of pace it out.

Though you do have your weeks and your months where it's exhausting of course, but then you don't know what's coming after.

And then you might have some downtime and you take advantage of that downtime when it's there because it's going to get wild again at some point, you know.

What would you want to share with people who are interested in becoming a court reporter?

I highly recommend it, but that's just because I love it.

And there's other people who would say, why would you recommend it to people with the way the technology is going and stuff?

Well, I believe for real time.

If you're good at real time, you still got a good while in the industry yet, for sure.

But if you're not real time, you need to be real time because that's going to set us apart from everything else.

The earning potential.

In Europe, it's a little different to here, I think, because of just the way we price and everything.

It's very different.

But the flexibility is insane.

You can work as much or as little as you want.

And that's what it comes back to, that burnout.

If you've been really busy, you can just take a week off because you're your own boss.

And then you've got to find that work life balance, which, hands up, I sometimes struggle with.

But we learn as we go along.

Even now, after 31 years, 33, whatever.

It is, having that team is so important because that's the only way to have a work life balance.

Otherwise you will be working 24 7.

And I didn't have a Scopus or a proofreader for many years.

It's only probably been the last seven years.

And now I sit there and I'm waiting for the files back and I'm like, how did I do this all on my own?

I don't know how I did it.

Especially with like the amount of admin work that comes with it when it comes to exhibits.

Oh my gosh, like marking exhibits, managing exhibits, making sure they're safe, organizing them online or wherever.

Like even coordinating between the scopists and the proofreaders to make sure someone's available.

Like all of that is very.

It's a lot.

Yeah.

And I did a post.

I could find it for you.

It was years ago and it was saying that we're not just stenographers on the keys, where accountants, where admin offices, where.

Where a lot of things.

I've got a whole list, I'll find it for you.

It was just when I sat down and thought about it and I made this list, I was like, this is insane.

And that's when I thought I need a scopist and a proofreader.

But I used to do my own work because I didn't think trust a scopist.

And you have to not gatekeep.

Like, if you want to have that work life balance, you have to be.

And it can take time to find a good one and have that relationship where you trust they're gonna be responsive.

And it really takes dedication.

You have to be so determined to want to build your team and to want that life, your life back.

Like to be able to spend time with your family or whatever's important to you.

Because for me, it took what, three weeks to sit down and interview people to find the right vtm, I call it, which is Virtual Transcript Manager.

But I mean, yeah, same thing with Scopus.

It takes time.

So if you have any last words of advice or encouragement or anything for the court reporting community, please share.

It's probably a bit of a cliche and they say it all the time.

It's the best career you've never heard of and it's true.

And it can take you anywhere around the world.

And I was told that when I was at university court reporting school, and I didn't believe them, but it's true.

And look at you now.

You're the living example of it.

Like I would.

I wish we could have had more stories or I think everybody loves to hear a specific story.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.

Bye.

Bye.