At the Olympics of court reporting, stereotyping participants not allowed
A man poured baby powder on his hands to soak up the nervous sweat, a computer fan blowing a slight breeze on his face. Across the aisle, in a silent hotel conference room, a contestant rubbed her face, breathing deeply.
Then, an explosion of movement — well, from the wrist down. A room full of the nation’s fastest court reporters flew into action, their fingers dancing rhythmically across an array of black keys as a machine-like voice read a story about the psychology of sociopathic cats. The goal: capturing
each of the 220 words uttered every minute — without making mistakes.
The 29 men and women filling the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver on Wednesday represented the cream of the captioning crop, the quickest fingers in the land. They descended on the Mile High City this week for the annual National Court Reporters Association convention and expo, where contestants are competing for the chance to be crowned the fastest, most accurate reporters and captioners in the country.
Welcome to the Olympics of court reporting.
Who are court reporters?
People often know court reporters from movies or TV shows — the silent, stoic person dutifully chronicling a case’s every twist and turn on their steno machine without so much as a smile or smirk.
“People think we’re robots,” said Amanda Maze, a court reporter from Brighton. “We’re not!”
And while the name of the role suggests court functions only, the profession extends far beyond depositions and preliminary hearings. Music festivals such as Coachella need closed captioning for performances. ESPN needs someone to rapidly keep up with football announcers for its telecasts.
And none of it requires a college degree.
“People have no idea what a great job it is,” said Joan McQuinn, a court reporter from Illinois and contest chair for the competition.
“You can travel. You can have a great government job. You can stay home. There are so many possibilities.”
Court reporting is not typing, contrary to popular belief. It’s really like learning a language.
The steno machines look like laptops with smaller screens. They feature keyboards with long, piano-like keys without any letters of numbers. To keep up with the speed of human speech, reporters write in their own shorthand, combining different keys to produce words and phrases.
They can also program keys to write common words that can be used with just one key stroke.
While these quick-twitch skills are mostly used in courtrooms and in boardrooms, veteran reporters and captioners relish the ability to compete against one another on steno’s biggest stage: the National Speed and Realtime competitions.
Donna Urlaub flew in from Chicago to take a crack at the titles. It’s her 50th year of court reporting and 32nd year competing, so she knows the drill.
Urlaub prepared every night for the competition by watching and transcribing ABC’s “World News Tonight” program. She likes the “How It’s Made” show because it presents unusual words that keep her on her toes — er, fingers.
She can type “diaper” with just one key stroke — a product of doing lots of freelance medical testimony.
“But I don’t have a brief for ‘psychopath,’ ” she lamented.
The name of the court reporting game, Urlaub said, is practice. Constant practice.
“In conversation, if somebody says a word, I’m creating briefs in my head,” she said with a laugh. “We’re constantly proofreading everything.”
Court reporters are grammar buffs and detail nuts with unnerving concentration. The best of them just let their fingers fly, a rhythm so familiar it’s like breathing or blinking.
“If you’re thinking,” Maze said, “you’ve already lost.”
The competition
In the speed contest Wednesday, contestants raced to complete three, five-minute sessions, escalating in speed and difficulty. Afterward, they’re allowed to clean up their transcriptions, and the person with the most accurate account takes home the gold.
And it’s all done in complete silence. Organizers gathered cellphones and watches to prevent any noises or beeps. One court reporter made sure that everyone had their Wi-Fi turned off.
“There’s a lawnmower outside!” one person yelled from the back, exasperated.
Participants kept their stenos on black tripods, hoisted up to their waists.
The computer voice launched into the third and final test, a rapid-fire sequence of questions and answers from a lawyer to a DNA expert. The speed: 280 words per minute.
Unlike a computer keyboard, the steno keys are virtually silent, save for a soft pattering. Finally, the five minutes ran up. “That was wild,” a wide-eyed viewer whispered from the back of the room.
Contestants clapped for each other, high-fiving their neighbors. They commiserated over the words “psychopathy” and “paleogeneticist.”
“There’s a real element of surprise,” Urlaub said, explaining how the phrase “people’s exhibit” tripped her up. “You never know what to prepare for.”
The transcriptions take hours to conduct, before editors comb through each line. Winners won’t be announced until Saturday.
But many of the participants said the tight-knit court reporter community is what brought them to Denver — not just the medal. They talk reporting horror stories over meals: a witness with a difficult accent, a deposition extending past midnight.
Urlaub never received a fouryear degree. But as a court reporter, she’s learned about everything from zoning laws to severe medical tragedies.
“I get a mini-education in everything,” Urlaub said. “I get to be a fly on the wall for so many interesting things.”