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Practical Tips for Daily Copy -Anthony D. Frisolone

Anthony D. Frisolone

FAPR, RDR, CRR, CBC, CRI

Official Court Reporter

U.S. District Court, Brooklyn, New York

� Every court reporting staff handles daily copy differently. Procedures can vary from county to county within a state, or from district to district.

� Do you work in a pool of reporters with a reserve of reporters able to help you?

� Is there an assignment system in place to handle daily copy?

� Do you work for one judge?

� Can you get help if daily copy is ordered.

� Most trial attorneys view daily copy as a necessary and valuable tool during trial.

� The like having the transcript immediately available.

� Many have come to depend on it.

� Others view daily copy as an unnecessary expense.

� Budgetary reasons.

� They have to account for expenses – insurance company or a client.

� How do you sell it to counsel?

� The transcript is a valuable tool to prepare upcoming witnesses.

� Why rely on your notes when you have the transcript.

� Decreased waiting time when the transcript is used for post-trial briefing preventing unnecessary delays or incurring unnecessary expenses.

� Speeds up the appellate process.

� Convenient for Judges and Law Clerks.� Decreased waiting time for juries who need testimony read back.

� Helps confirm what was said and clears up memory lapses.

� Certified copy in hand.

� Daily copy helps confirm what exhibits have been admitted.

� Allows chambers staff to have the transcript readily available as reference tool in post-trial proceedings.

� Have a paragraph included in the pretrial order giving your information to the attorneys.

� Success starts with the right information.

� The caption and the appearances.

� Use other information sources to build a glossary.

� Past deposition transcripts, grand jury transcripts.

� Job dictionary from previous proceedings.� PACER/ECF.

� State court electronic database.

� Courthouse file room.


� Obtain witness and exhibit lists in advance.

� Call the attorneys.

� Sometimes they’re hard to obtain.

� Especially in criminal cases.

� Some judges have a paragraph requiring counsel to supply the reporter with a glossary.

� Try to get these lists in an electronic format.

� Easier to distribute to others.

� What is your support system?

� Alert your scopist a few days in advance.

� Do you have a scopist?

� Where to find a scopist.

� Scopists.com; Facebook; LinkedIn; DepoMan; NCRA Forum.

� How will you get the transcript to your scopist?

� File sharing programs.

� Send This File.

� Dropbox.

� Works great with Work Units (Case CATalyst).

� Eclipse has Connection Magic.

� Find out if another reporter or reporters can assist you with the trial.

� If that’s a possibility, and you get commitments, make a schedule of who will be helping you.

� Do this for every day of the trial.

� At the beginning of the week or the Friday before the trial.

� Avoids confusion and everyone knows what they’ll be doing each day.

� Have phone numbers handy in case of delays or emergencies.

� Put them on paper and in your phone.

� Use a “Tally Sheet” to keep track of pages.


� Sticky notes can be your best friend.

� Helps remind you of the next day’s starting page number and anything else you feel is important.

� There are electronic sticky notes, too.

� Cnet.com� http://download.cnet.com/Post-it-Digital-Notes/3000-2351_4-10060027.html

� Have the parties sign an order form � Get a deposit from the ordering parties.

� Check or credit card.

� If public defender or CJA counsel, get prior approval from the judge.� If not, have them state it on the record before the trial begins.

� Consult your court reporter’s manual on the rates to be charged.� For daily/immediate transcripts – hard copy and/or electronic copies; condensed transcripts and word indexes.

� Realtime rates.

� Schedule a meeting with members of all trial teams if possible

� And talk to the reporters who will be assisting you.

� A few days before the trial.

� So everyone is still calm and can think rationally.

� Advocating for the service.

� Counsel may not know about the advantages of receiving a realtime feed.

� Realtime is an instantaneous and searchable record of the proceedings.

� Attorneys can make electronic notes in the software.

� Attorneys can make sure all their points were covered with the witness.

� Instant impeachment of a witness.

� Ask the following questions:

� Is counsel bringing their own computer?

� Do they want you to provide the computers/tablet computers?

� If counsel is providing their own...

� Confirm realtime receive software is loaded.

� If not, make sure computer is not locked down.

� Disable any virus protection.

� Make sure you know how to load the RT receive software or run it from a flash drive.

� Test out the realtime on the laptop counsel will be using for the trial.

� Find out if counsel have their own cables if they receive realtime serially.


� Have a few USB-to-serial cable handy.

� Possibly a spare laptop or two.

� If counsel has their own computer, make sure counsel has the password for the laptop to avoid panic.

� Establish contact with a person from each law firm.

� Have a central point of contact.

� Get e-mails to find out who will be receiving the transcript every night.

� Create a distribution list in your e-mail account

� Speeds up sending the transcript at night.

� Realtime - Wired or Wireless or both?

� Check courthouse security policy.

� Some courts prohibits wireless RT for security reasons.

� Do you have the proper cables and/or router?

� Talk to your vendor and discuss your possible needs.

� Never rely on the attorneys to be prepared.

� Remote/streaming realtime.

� Remote Counsel, LiveNote Stream. CaseViewNet Cloud.

� Get an order from your judge allowing the parties to have this.

� You may have to explain what it is and why it is needed to the judge.

� Communicate with the vendor to set up streaming RT.

� Streaming is also good for multiple, multiple connections.

� What if realtime is not available?

� Offer immediate copy instead.

� Delivery of the final transcript two hours after the end of the court day.

� Delivery of morning session before the afternoon session?

� Things to consider.

� Shortening the turns between reporters to ensure keeping of deadlines.

� If using a scopist, you may want to have a second scopist to keep deadlines.

� In that case, have scopist 1 do the odd takes and scopist 2 do the even takes.


� Condensed transcripts.

� 4 in 1 is the preferable format.

� Lightens the attorneys’ load.

� Word indexes.

� Master index.

� Compilation of all witnesses and exhibits for the entire trial.

� Helps locate witnesses quickly and speeds up readbacks to the jury.

� CAT software and third-party programs can do all of these.

� On the day of the trial, create a paper seating chart.

� Make it large enough to be seen.

� Keep track of who relieved each other.

� Use a clipboard to pass off to each other.

� Makes merging transcript files easier to do.

�Use a chart such as this:

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� Find out what the trial schedule is going to be.

� Full or half days?

� Any days off?

� Working past 5:00 p.m.?

� Starting earlier?

� This all should be outlined in the pre-trial conference.

� Unexpected things can happen.

� Jury Selection.

� Will the judge do it?

� Will a magistrate do it?

� If your judge does it…

� Will you report the voir dire alone or with your fellow reporters?

� Is the voir dire reported?

� If the magistrate does it…

� Find out who will be reporting it?

� Is it reported?

� Find out if the attorneys want a transcript of the voir dire.

� If it’s a high-profile case, voir dire may be ordered.

� Capital cases.

� High-profile civil cases.

� Daily copy/realtime is an excellent tool for jury consultants during voir dire.


� Switching reporters.� Establish a protocol of how reporters will relieve each other.� At the mid-morning/mid-afternoon break.

� Morning and afternoon sessions.

� The “Silent Switch.”

� The “Silent Switch.”� The reporter takes over on the question.

� With a nod of the head or a tap on the shoulder.

� Communication

� Establish who the parties can contact if you can’t be contacted.

� If there’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

� Establish a second person from each side to contact.

� Four questions.

� To whom will the transcript be delivered.

� In what format?� PDF, PTX, ASCII, hard copy.

� If hard copy, full-sized or condensed?

� By when?� For daily, 9:00 a.m. For immediate, by 7:00 p.m. or two hours after the close of the proceedings.

� And where will the full-size version be picked up or delivered.� At the courthouse or the attorneys’ offices.

� Find out what’s in store for the next day.

� Starting time change.

� Hearings in the middle of the trial.

� Will there be a calendar call before the trial day begins.

� Decide who will cover the calendar call.

� Usually the principal reporter handles the calendar call.

� Merging the transcript.

� Delivery of the transcript.

� Merging the transcript.

� Do you know how your CAT system handles this function?

� If working as the assisting reporter, do you know how to produce an RTF file if needed?

� Will each reporter print out their portions and then merge them at a central location in the office.

� Create a distribution list for e-mails.

� Sending out the transcript with just a couple of clicks.

� Printing – is your printer fast enough?

� Does the day really end?

� Some trials can last weeks, even months.

� Make sure to take care of yourself.

� Eat right. Keeps healthy snacks around; drink lots of water.

� Get some sleep. Helps with concentration.


� Using a “Tally Sheet” to keep track of pages.

� Do this as you’re merging the files together.

� One less thing to do at the end of the week.

� Don’t go beyond a day or two of not tracking pages.

� Speeds up the invoicing process.

� Give copies to each of your assisting reporters so they have a record of the work they did.

� If it’s a long trial - more than 2 or 3 weeks - give the attorneys a bill at the end of the week for each week of trial.

� Some attorneys will ask for a bill at the end of the week.

� If they pay by credit card, be aware that there are fees associated with credit card payment.

� Create a folder on your computer or Dropbox of all PDFs, ASCIIs, RTF files.

� File access anywhere.

� Two ways:

� Each reporter signs a certification and attaches it to t the end of the transcript.

� No certification.

� Consult court reporter’s manual for clarification.

� All reporters’ names on the cover page of the transcript.

� Footers identifying each reporter’s section of the transcript.

� For errata purposes.