What You Don't Know About Court Reporting

So you needed a court reporter in another state for a deposition. You go online and book a court reporter from one of those "National Court Reporting Services." Below is a description of how those typical “National,” companies work and what you really get.

How National Reporting companies work:

First, a Reporting company decides to go national and needs to have reporters in every part of the country. Second, they market themselves across the country and sell franchises. Many sell these franchises by giving a court reporting service the rights to a specific zip code. Basically, the first one who comes up with the money gets a specific zip code. That’s all it takes for them to be qualified, really... that’s all. Would you allow a doctor to operate on you because they were the first one to purchase the right to operate in a specific hospital? So these "National" companies are really nothing more than a referral service.

So you booked your deposition with this "National" service. Now what...

The reporting service gets notified by the "National" provider and covers the deposition you booked.

Now this is what else you didn't know...

These reporting services also have their own client base in their immediate market. They will put their most qualified reporters on those jobs first. Typically, the reporter with the least amount of experience is put on your deposition. Why? Because they believe that you will only use them this one time and will most likely never hear from you again. So they have nothing to lose if you’re dissatisfied with the reporter.

In addition, if you take multiple depositions in multiple states, you will need to manage who has what Original transcript and try and track down each individual reporting service.

Contact Pro-Systems to learn more about how we can serve you completely, give you more, and do it right.