Now that you are certified as a court reporter, you are ready to enter the market with all your skills and knowledge. But a certificate or a degree is not enough to be a good court reporter. You need to possess certain skills that will help you proceed in your career journey. Here are some of the skills you need to have or develop in order to be a successful court reporter.

Punctuality

It goes without saying that a court reporter needs to be at the hearings or deposition on time. If you miss a couple of minutes, this will take away the time of the attorneys and the client as well as will ruin your reputation. So, leaving home or office a couple of minutes earlier than normal makes sense. Anything can happen. You may get into a traffic jam, or something unexpected may happen. Take that into account.

Confidentiality

Court professionals take part in very sensitive legal actions. Very often the testimony should remain confidential, and since you have access to this valuable information, it is of primary importance not to give away that information anywhere.

Non-biased Approach

It is of primary importance that you remain neutral and do not share your opinion or support any of the parties. If they treat one party unequally over the other, this may cause problems and client dissatisfaction. So, your job is to record everything without interfering into the actual process. Moreover, you should not show compassion or disapproval by gestures or in any other way.

Ability to Interfere with Reason

In the last paragraph, we mentioned that court reporters should not interfere in the actual legal process. However, there are times when you need to speak up. For example, you may ask for the spelling of street names, company names, client names, etc. You may also mishear something, and it makes sense to ask to repeat what the participants say.

Ability to Document Spoken Work Fast And Accurate

One of the skills you need to have is shorthand writing. You need to type faster than the attorneys and the deponent speak. Sometimes they may add something or show something by gestures. These should be documented with accuracy each time identifying the person who speaks. Basically, these two skills – speed and accuracy add to each other. There is no sense to type fast if you are not accurate. So, be sure to take typing classes and also be attentive to details.

Awesome Job Opportunities for Certified Court Reporters

Since you are on this page, I am going to share information with you about multiple job opportunities for court reporters. I am talking about an attorney portal with thousands of users in the states of California, New York, Nevada, Texas, and New Jersey. When you sign up to the portal absolutely free, you will get hundreds of job opportunities posted in real time.

To know more about the application, please contact the AppearMe staff or sign up today.