Legal Industry News

October 8, 2010

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Demand for Court Reporters to Grow by 18%

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Outlook for the court reporting profession is looking bright.

Employment of court reporters is projected to grow 18 percent, faster than the average for all occupations between 2008 and 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (“BLS”).

The BLS attributes this employment growth to the continuing need for accurate transcription of proceedings in courts and in pretrial depositions, by the growing need to create captions for live television, and by the need to provide other real-time broadcast captioning and translating services for the deaf and the hard of hearing.

The BLS though warned that while increasing numbers of civil and criminal cases are expected to create new jobs for court reporters, budget constraints are expected to limit the ability of Federal, State, and local courts to expand, thereby also limiting the demand for traditional court reporting services in courtrooms and other legal venues.

Further, because of the difficulty in attracting court reporters and in controlling costs, some courtrooms have installed tape recorders that are maintained by electronic court reporters and transcribers to record court proceedings.

But the BLS was quick to add that because courts use electronic reporters and transcribers only in a limited capacity, traditional stenographic court reporters will continue to be used in felony trials and other proceedings.

“Despite the use of audiotape and videotape technology, court reporters can quickly turn spoken words into readable, searchable, permanent text, and they will continue to be needed to produce written legal transcripts and proceedings for publication,” the BLS added.

On the whole, job opportunities for court reporters are expected to be excellent as job openings continue to outnumber jobseekers in some areas.

Court reporters with certification and those who choose to specialize in providing CART (or Communication Access Real-time Translation), broadcast captioning, or webcasting services should have the best job opportunities. CART reporters often work with hard-of-hearing students and people who are learning English as a second language, captioning high school and college classes and providing transcripts at the end of the sessions.

“Court reporters who are willing to relocate to rural areas or large cities, where demand for court reporters’ services is very high, should have good job opportunities. The favorable job market also reflects the fact that fewer people are entering this profession, particularly as stenographic typists,” the BLS predicted.

Increasingly, court reporters will be needed for captioning outside of legal proceedings. Not only is there Federal legislation mandating that all new television programming be captioned for the deaf and the hard of hearing, but all new Spanish-language programming likewise must be captioned by 2010.

In addition, the Americans with Disabilities Act gives deaf and hard-of-hearing students in colleges and universities the right to request access to real-time translation in their classes. These factors are expected to continue to increase the demand for court reporters who provide CART services. Although such services forgo transcripts and differ from traditional court reporting, they require the same skills that court reporters learn in their training.

The BLS found that court reporters held about 21,500 jobs in 2008. A little more than half worked for State and local governments, a reflection of the large number of court reporters working in courts, legislatures, and various agencies. Most of the remaining wage and salary workers were employed by court reporting agencies.

As shown in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition, court reporters had median annual wages of $49,710 in May 2008. The middle 50 percent earned between $35,390 and $67,430. The lowest paid 10 percent earned less than $25,360, and the highest paid 10 percent earned more than $83,500. Median annual wages in May 2008 were $51,150 for court reporters working in local government and $44,670 for those working in business support services.