Is Stenography Back?

With the rise of digital transcription technology, people thought stenography was a thing of the past.

This was almost a sure thing during the global COVID pandemic as so many court proceedings became virtual.

However, since the quarantines have lifted and more proceedings have returned to in-person, we’ve seen a huge uptick in demand for stenographers.

Judges’ Preference

The simplest explanation for this is many judges prefer stenographers.

While many in the judiciary have accepted virtual hearings and depositions after they proved viable during the pandemic, now that a court reporter can be back in the room, they are preferring a return to stenographers.

We saw this pre-pandemic all the time. Some judges would allow digital recordings and transcriptions, but others would not allow them as admissible evidence.

That standard may be different now, but the preference is likely to remain.

Why Steno?

The reason for the judges’ preference is fairly simple. However, it’s not just judges requesting stenographers. Many attorneys also want their depositions to be transcribed by a stenographer, even if a digital transcript is admissible, for one simple reason:

Stenographers, for now, are still more accurate and reliable than machines (though the gap is closing).

Digital transcription is notorious for not accurately discerning between different accents. It is very likely to have court proceedings with native English speakers with wildly varying colloquial accents. In an international, cosmopolitan area like South Florida, it is even more likely that non-native speakers from multiple countries could end up in the same courtroom.

How to Find a Stenographer

This is simple – call us a DLE Legal.

We provide a wide variety of court reporting options. When a digital court reporting solution is all that is necessary, we provide competitive rates.

However, it is becoming more and more difficult to find quality stenographic court reporters. We put a good deal of effort into recruiting top talent so that we can make them available to our clients when only a stenographer will do.