Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 2, 2010
Changes in court reporting met with excitement, gratitude
Erica Tuggle
Sheila Wilson, who founded Wilson Court Reporting in 1987, has worked alongside the Chattanooga Bar Association and many others to amend critical legislation pertaining to the court reporting profession. This amended legislation and the upcoming mandatory licensure of court reporters will provide a previously missing forum for court reporter and attorney concerns and issues.
- Erica Tuggle
A court reporter takes down verbatim the proceedings in courtrooms, public hearings, and depositions, and now through advances in technology can also close caption programs and events to assist the hearing impaired. In conjunction with these duties, one of the most important elements of court reporting is to remain impartial and unbiased, to be guardians of the record and not to have even the slightest hint of bias or impropriety, says Sheila Wilson.
Founder of Wilson Report-ing Agency, and working as a court reporter since 1986, Wilson says she and her employees are expected by litigants and the general public to report proceedings in a competent, independent and neutral manner, with no financial or other stake in the outcome of the litigation. Although this may sound like a no-brainer, a recent change in litigation has threatened this impartiality and the duty that Wilson says is imperative to their profession and the litigators they work with. With an inadvertent deletion in the language of a stature, the law professionals, court reporters and representatives of Tennessee bound together to right the wrong.
The anti-contracting legislation in question was enacted in 2000, but when the statute was amended in 2009, the critical language that defined a contract with a court reporter and prohibited said reporter from entering into a contract with parties of interest (which would void the deposition) was omitted. Wilson says this opened the door for contracting with court reporters in Tennessee.
Wilson, who was voted president elect to the Tennessee Court Reporters Association this month, says at their meetings there were several concerns voiced by attorneys that the deletion of the language resulted in defense attorneys no longer having the freedom to hire the court reporter of their choice and instead having to call an 800 number to schedule all their depositions through the service. This company would then call local court reporters and dictate the terms under which assignments were made.
Wilson says this forced court reporters to completely relinquish control of the transcript as its production, invoicing and delivery were handled outside of the state by this company. Not only could attorney’s not continue to use court reporter’s of their choice, but plaintiff’s lawyers were also receiving their transcripts at considerably higher rates than normal, sometimes double the normal in the local community, Wilson says.
Because of these problems, Wilson says, last year the Tennessee Court Reporters Association began to try and reinstate the language back into the previously 10 year effective statute that had never before been challenged. She says it was the help of the attorneys throughout the state, the Chattanooga, Bar Association, and the Tennessee Association for Justice who helped in the success of putting this matter right.
“We asked for their help, experiences and testimonies on how they were being affected. In Chattanooga they were very vocal and we were blessed to have the support of the Chattanooga Bar Association who had tremendous input to the legislators,” she says.
With this support, the amendment passed both the Senate and the House with all “yes” votes. In June, Gov. Bredesen signed the amendment back into the statute making Tennessee the 29th state that prohibits court reporters from having an ongoing financial relationship with parties in cases, Wilson says.
This ties in with the other news from the court reporters that their fight to have required licensure in their field is now a reality. Effective July 1, all court reporters in Tennessee are required to be licensed. Wilson says the licensure will go a long way in insuring there are deterrents for entering under contracts of the aforementioned nature with the threat of court reporters able to lose their license
for such behavior and other acts of misconduct.
“With licensure, an attorney and other court reporters can now report incidents of contracting, or if they feel there are problems with a court reporter they now have a forum they can voice those concerns too, and their license can be in jeopardy,” Wilson says.
She wants attorneys to know that licensure is now required, and says attorneys should be asking their court reporter about contracts they are involved with, who will be producing the transcript and licensing.
“With anti-contractual language and the licensure, we feel these two elements working in tandem should create a forum in which we can really make a difference and everyone can be treated fairly and equally,” she says.
Wilson says there have been many advances since she began in the business and she likes to see how new technology is implemented in the law profession as well as the general public.
Change may be tough, but in legislation, licensure and technology for the court reporting profession, it is for the better.
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