What can court reporters do to provide financial savings to the courts?
A. The Judicial Council’s budgetary guidelines carry a mandate to the courts to make more efficient use of existing resources. Court reporters are currently working with the Judicial Council, through the Reporting of the Record Task Force (RRTF), on several initiatives. One initiative calls for one volume/one day transcripts. This will significantly cut what courts pay for transcripts (an expense item which actually has been in decline since 1996) by reducing the need for extra copies due to extensive corrections, including repagination and coordinating multi-reporter excerpts, when preparing transcripts on appeal. In Los Angeles County alone, this can result in a cost savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Another initiative comes straight from the pages of the courts’ 30-year plan “Justice in the Balance 2020,” which calls for paperless courts. The RRTF is preparing recommendations for the production, delivery, and maintenance of paperless transcripts. The courts will
