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Career Exploration

Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners

Also called: Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR), Court Reporter, Court Stenographer, Official Court Reporter

What they do:

Use verbatim methods and equipment to capture, store, retrieve, and transcribe pretrial and trial proceedings or other information. Includes stenocaptioners who operate computerized stenographic captioning equipment to provide captions of live or prerecorded broadcasts for hearing-impaired viewers.

On the job, you would:
  • Record verbatim proceedings of courts, legislative assemblies, committee meetings, and other proceedings, using computerized recording equipment, electronic stenograph machines, or stenomasks.
  • Proofread transcripts for correct spelling of words.
  • Ask speakers to clarify inaudible statements.
On the job, you'll need:

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Business

  • administrative services
  • customer service

Engineering and Technology

  • computers and electronics

Safety and Government

  • law and government

Basic Skills

  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions
  • writing things for co-workers or customers

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

Verbal

  • listen and understand what people say
  • communicate by writing

Attention

  • pay attention to something without being distracted

Conventional

People interested in this work like activities that include data, detail, and regular routines.

  • Attention to Detail
  • Dependability
  • Independence
  • Integrity
  • Self Control
  • Stress Tolerance

Word processing software

  • Advantage Software Total Eclipse
  • Microsoft Word

Data base user interface and query software

  • Acclaim Legal Acclaim DepoManage
  • OMTI ReporterBase

Enterprise resource planning ERP software

  • Acculaw Court Reporters Billing Scheduling Job Management System ABSMS
  • ReporterWorks

Job Outlook

The job outlook for this position is Average.

New job opportunities are likely in the future.

Median Annual Salary: $63,560

Education

Certificate after high school or associate's degree is usually needed.