Pre-Launch: My Journey to Court Reporting

Court reporters hold one of the most important and mysterious roles in the justice system.We're appointed as officers before whom witnesses swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.And our records are the official records of the courts.But how much does school really prepare us for all this?Let's talk about how to navigate through the unexpected obstacles and fears we face so we can run our businesses and live our lives with peace of mind instead of stress and overwhelm.I'm your host, court reporter and life coach, Bryn Seymour.Let's get right into it.Hey, what's up?Welcome to the Court Reporter podcast and thank you so much for listening.I'm super, super excited for this pre launch episode.So what this episode is going to be about is how I got into court reporting.So let's talk about that.So I was working at a tech startup after two years of college.So I went to Gettysburg College for my first year.Right after graduating from high school, I went to Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and I went there for one year.And after that year I decided I wanted to transfer because it didn't feel like it was for me and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.And I thought maybe I should just go back to my home state, which is Connecticut, and maybe being closer to home and being at a bigger school like UConn would help me to figure out what I want to do.So I transferred to the University of Connecticut and I went there for another year, my second year of college, and I still didn't know what I wanted to major in.I continued to just do the general education with an undecided major and I just was really not into school.I didn't, you know, I'm the type of person that likes to be really sure of what I want to do and I like to really go for it and have a really strong goal and really put all my efforts into it.And I just love to maximize my efforts into and focus on one thing, kind of like constrain my focus and really get the most out of it.So.So I still, at the end of the second year at UConn, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.I was so confused and lost.I would take classes.Like I would be the last person to sign up because I really didn't even know what classes I wanted to take.I wasn't really interested in much of it.I took a class I remember at UConn about bugs.So that's just an example like, that was one of the only classes that was left at the time, and I took it.And I mean, I'm not saying I probably am making myself sound like a very terrible student.I was not a bad student.I'm actually, you know, right individual.I had good grades, I did pretty well in school, but I just didn't know really where to put my focus towards.And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life.So after that year, still really not knowing what major to declare and what to do with my life, I just decided to take some time off.I moved to New York City.I got a job at a tech startup called Mesoclick.And I was working as front desk receptionist, office person.And so at that time, I cannot remember who it was to thank them, but somebody suggested because I. I have a weirdly fast typing speed on a regular keyboard, I would always type really fast.I typed about 100 words per minute on a regular keyboard.So somebody mentioned that I typed so fast that I should look into court reporting.And they kind of just explained what it was, or maybe they said stenography, I can't remember.But at the time, it didn't really interest me too much because I guess it didn't because it took me a year to actually really get into it.So after a year, I guess at that time, maybe it didn't appeal to me because it sounded boring or because I've never heard of it before.Didn't sound like something that.That I should look into at the moment.But as time passed by, I still, like, hadn't, you know, a year passed, I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing with my life.I'm just kind of going with the flow and seeing where things lead.And so I.But I was kind of anxious to really figure out what I want to do.So I started searching, like, what are the top hidden careers?What are some good jobs that you can get without having a bachelor's degree?Because at the time, I only had two years of my college done.So.And I wanted to get a better job than the office job that I had.So I was just searching and I came across an article titled the top 10 hidden and most Lucrative Careers.And one of them at the top of the list was court reporting.And it really intrigued me because, you know, someone had already suggested that I look into court reporting.And reading the article about it was really amazing because everything, all the characteristics and things that make a good court reporter kind of seemed to fit with my Talents, my specific skills and everything, like having good dexterity.And also, one of the main things was music.And it said that those who are pianists are really good court reporters.For some reason.There's a correlation between piano and court reporting.I'm sure court reporters can understand that, you know, with the combination of keys and the phonetics and kind of like, I don't know, there's something about it that makes good court reporter.So I, being someone who played piano from the age of five, kind of thought like, wow, this is really falling into place.Like, this seems like the perfect fit for me.And not only that, but I saw that court reporters can make their own schedule.And that way I could focus on my passions and my hobbies and my interests, because I'm really involved in volunteer work and sustainability, event coordinating when it comes to cleanups and coat drives, sock drives, church events.I'm really involved with my church, the Church of God.And I, you know, base my life around my faith in Elohim, God, which.Elohim is the word, plural word for God, which is the original Hebrew in The Bible used 2,500 times as the word for God.So instead of just God the Father, we understand it to be, through the Bible, God the father and God the mother.So that's my faith and my belief, and I'm just sharing that because that's a big part of who I am and a big part of the reason why I wanted to find a career that would allow me to make enough money, but also have time to really devote myself to.To God and volunteer as much as possible and be available as much as possible.And so that was my whole, like, one of the biggest reasons that I was really excited to do court reporting.Not only that I knew I'd be good at it, and I knew it would come naturally to me, but also because I wanted that free time.I just was so sure.This is the first time in my life that I was so sure of what I wanted to do.So immediately I told my parents about it, and I told them, like, this is it.I. I want to go to an open house and learn about the career of court reporting, like an orientation.So my parents.So I invited my parents to come with me, and we went together to New York Career Institute nyci, which is now known as Plaza College.Plaza College.And so we went, and my.My dad was kind of hesitant because he was like, are you sure?You know, the dropout rate is 90%.Like, are you really sure you can do this?And I was Just so sure that I knew, like, I just knew in my heart and in my bones and in my, I knew that I would be able to do it and I knew that I would probably.I told him, I'm going to break the records, I'm going to finish faster than anyone else ever has.That's exactly what I did.I devoted myself, thanks to God, I didn't have to worry about making money or a job because I was able to get it funded and to get, you know, my parents were helping out with bills and things like that.So I had that, that blessing.But also I've heard from other court reporters who got financial aid or who were able to get a.Find a way to let school be their full time thing so they could really focus on practicing as much as possible and really focus on, you know, on school to finish quickly.That's my suggestion for students because, you know, once you do graduate, you're going to make the money back even if you put yourself into debt during school.As long as you're confident in your ability to graduate, definitely worth, worth it if you can find a way to fund it without working.But anyway, of course, everybody's journey is different and everybody is.Everything is possible.Actually, I know my mentor, Joshua Edwards, he was working part time during his school and.But he had a job where he was actually, I think, if I remember correctly.Please correct me if I'm wrong, Joshua, if you're listening to this, at a job that allowed him to actually practice while he was working, he found a way to make it work.I found a way to make it work.Like I said, once you start working, you're able to pay back the money that you invested in the school.And even more like within a year.I worked hard and practiced hard and finished within 14 months.And it was really exciting and it was so much fun writing on the sewing machine.But my weakness is definitely all the other things like courtroom procedures and scoping, all the case cat stuff, the technical stuff.And those things are not my strong points.And that is why I definitely struggled with a lot of the other aspects of the job.Rather, you know, the only thing I was really good at is writing on the machine.And since that's my skill and my talent, I want to capitalize on that, focus on that and delegate the rest because that's the skill that's actually important and that's the skill that makes me the most money.And if I spend, if I calculate the amount of money that I make from the hours that I'm actually Writing on the machine versus the hours that I'm editing or coordinating or scoping or whatever.It's like incomparable.The amount, the, the difference of the amount, like it's just so much higher maximizing on the hours that I could be writing on the machine.So that's why eventually, through all my struggles and all my frustrations, I decided to hire not just like, like basically a dedicated scopist or a court reporter's assistant.I called it a virtual transcript manager.I think I, at the time I was hosting interviews in person.This was before COVID so about three years ago, well, three and a half years ago now, maybe I was hosting interviews I posted the job on.Indeed.So of course, and this was after I had already reached out to my favorite scopists to see if they would be willing and interested to being like a dedicated scopist who would not only scope but also manage the entire process of the transcript management.So as soon as I'm done with my job, I could just get it out of sight, out of mind and know for sure that it's going to be taken care of by my trustworthy second half.Basically like my extension of myself.That's what I was looking for.And so none of the scopists, I only had one scopist that I really, really liked working with who was an official court reporter, who actually is currently an official court reporter, but she scopes in her spare time and she's really good.But she, because she's a full time working in court, you know, busy with the family and stuff, she couldn't devote, I mean she couldn't commit to this job and a few other.I think I tried a couple other scopists and it didn't work out.So I ended up just saying, okay, they don't need to be a scopist.Because the skill of scoping can easily be taught to someone who's intelligent.Anyone who's intelligent and has a good handle on the English language, like a natural ability to write well and communicate well and speak well can do this job.Of course they have to have a talent with technology like be pretty tech savvy and able to learn new softwares because they have to learn the skill and the software of Case Cat.So I hosted these interviews and in person I hosted about, I don't know, I probably interviewed 20 different people and there was one who fit everything.There was.There's an assessment that you can make people take on indeed to kind of assess their abilities to learn new softwares and their Tech savviness.And so there one out of many, many applicants that got a five star or like 100% on this test when everyone else was getting, you know, much lower scores.And I thought, wow, this is really impressive.And I met with her and she was like a really good fit for me.You know, very well educated, intelligent and very good communicator.Really, really naturally good at, you know, the English language, punctuation and everything.And so it was the perfect fit.And I hired her and trained her.She learned very quickly.She's very smart, much better and at doing what she does than I am.And we're still working together to this day.So for about three and a half years we've been working together and it's been great because she's, you know, just taking, she's, she's just doing really well and growing and I think she loves it.Well, I know she loves it.She's expressed that to me many times.So I'm going to definitely have her on the podcast in one of the early episodes to have her and I talk about our system and she can share how she does her job and manages her time and how she feels about this job.You know, this is going to be a great way for many other scopists to hopefully become virtual transcript managers because I think, like, I truly believe that it's really worth investing in someone who can really take care of all this and really be trustworthy so that we don't have to worry so much and be so overwhelmed all the time with having to respond to emails and requests and trying to figure out different formats and data entry, doing all this busy work that is not really necessary.That's my experience.And next week or whenever we release the next pre launch episode, we will talk more about that.Again, I just want to explain that these pre launch episodes are before the release date.Before the launch date.So the launch date is January 1st and before that we're going to release three or four episodes just to get some feedback and feel out the audience and see who wants to collaborate, who has suggestions, you know, just get some feedback.And this is like a test, test launch.So we'll probably release few.So just if you want to stay up to date, you can join the entrepreneurial Court Reporter group on Facebook and you can also reach out to me on Facebook or reach out to me via email or subscribe to the podcast and stay up to date so you get notified every time we launch a test episode and can't wait to see you on January 1st for the full and exciting launch of the podcast.See you then.Thanks for listening to the Court Reporter Podcast.If you feel like this podcast has brought any value to your business or your life as a court reporter, leaving some positive feedback and a five star review will help me to continue providing you with valuable content.Please head to courtreporterpodcast.com to subscribe so you don't miss any updates.And if you have any suggestions or constructive criticism, let's chat about it.Send a message to collabortreporterpodcast.com that's C O L L A B, short for collaboratereporterpodcast.com See you next time.Bye.