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Realtime Court Reporting on the Rise

Statistics for fiscal year 2004 indicate that use of Realtime court reporting continued to rise in federal district courts. The number of requested transcript pages rose from 1.76 million in FY 2003 to 2.26 million in FY 2004, an increase of 28 percent.

Realtime is the almost instant text delivery of the court proceedings by computer to the judge and attorneys in the courtroom.

The Judicial Conference of the United States, which makes policy for the federal courts, authorized a 10 percent increase in 2002 in the pay of certified Realtime court reporters, in recognition of the significant services provided to judges. The Conference previously had authorized court reporters to charge a fee for pages of Realtime services provided to attorneys.

About 85 percent of the requested Realtime pages in FY 2004 came from judges. But the biggest percentage increases of requested pages came from U.S. attorneys. They requested 13,978 pages, a 518 percent increase over FY 2003.