Mechanics Salary

Court reporters are people who are trained to take down verbatim transcripts, usually of legal proceedings in the courtroom. They are also present at depositions that are held outside of the courtroom. Court reporting is a growing field and is forecast by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to continue to grow, especially in the specialized areas of real-time broadcast captioning and translation.

Court Reporter Tools

Court reporters perform their job by using a machine that is basically a mechanical form of shorthand. The machine, called a writer by court reporters, is a stenograph machine that has fewer keys than a typical keyboard and works by use of key combinations that represent shorthand words.

Learning to use the steno machine and developing speed is the key training involved in preparing to be a court reporters. Court reporters typically purchase their steno machine, which can run into the thousands of dollars for a quality writer.