Court reporting is the process of documenting the speech that occurs during legal proceedings, either in a courtroom or during depositions that are recorded outside of court. Court reporters record the words of defendants, lawyers, prosecutors and other people appearing in court in a written format, allowing legal teams to refer to the documents later to find out what transpired during the court hearing.

Traditionally, court reporters have used a shorthand form of language known as stenography to record court proceedings. After the court proceedings have been completed, court reporters can go back and translate it from shorthand into Standard English, although this process can take a long time.

Real-time court reporting uses technology to quickly translate court reporters’ shorthand into English. This speeds up the process of creating a written record of the court proceedings.

How Real-time Court Reporting Works

Some of the earliest machines to be used by court reporters were known as stenographs. Invented in 1830 and significantly updated in the early 20th century, a stenograph allows court reporters to record their shorthand notes very quickly. A stenograph contains fewer keys than a traditional keyboard and allows more than one key to be pressed at the same time. Court reporters have used stenographs for nearly two hundred years to create a record of court proceedings.

Real-time court reporting involves connecting a court reporter’s stenography machine to a computer. Using computer-aided transcription (CAT) technology, the computer can automatically translate the shorthand notes into a full English report.

Magna Legal Services uses real-time court reporting to ensure that lawyers always have accurate depositions to support their cases in court. Using the latest in reporting technology, along with an advanced online legal management service, Magna Legal Services allows lawyers to organize their depositions and other important legal files from anywhere in the world.

Cost Benefits of Real-time Court Reporting

One of the main benefits of real-time court reporting technology is that it is interactive, which means it allows you to make notes on a testimony. You can easily view previous parts of the testimony, which facilitates on-the-fly research. This can cut down on the overall research costs that your business faces.

Another key benefit of real-time court reporting technology is that it allows transcripts to be delivered very quickly, cutting down on the amount of time you spend waiting for the information you need. This makes the litigation process more efficient, which could lead to significant cost savings for your legal firm.

Magna Legal Vision takes real-time court reporting to the next level. This platform allows you to collect and organize video depositions using video teleconferencing and streaming services. This technology can save time and cut costs by reducing the need for people giving testimonies to physically travel to your office or the courtroom. The platform also offers multimedia features, in which witnesses can annotate exhibits during a deposition. These tools can be extremely powerful in many cases.

Advantages of Real-time Court Reporting

Real-time court reporting has many advantages. The most obvious advantage is the greater efficiency of the process, which allows you to gain access to reports much more quickly than would be possible if you had to wait for them to be translated by a human court reporter.

When you use the real-time court reporting services offered by Magna Legal Services, you gain access to an even greater range of benefits. In particular, Magna’s cloud-based Online Office platform which allows you to access and work with your deposition files no matter where in the world you are located or what kind of device you are using.

Some of the features Magna Legal Services Online Office offers include the following:

  • Deposition management:You can use the deposition request form to schedule depositions at times that suit everyone. You can specify the format you want the deposition to be recorded in, whether it’s a text file, CD or video report.
  • Calendar management:You can view and manage your deposition schedule for today, this week or the following month.
  • Document management:You can access all documents related to a case online through this cloud-based platform. You can review and print documents or share them with other members of your legal team.
  • Account management:You can manage your invoices and other important account information online.

Magna Legal Vision is another useful service offered by Magna Legal Services. This technology provides Magna clients with real-time access to their deposition and video footage.

Conclusion

Real-time court reporting offers many benefits to legal firms who want to provide the best possible service to their clients. To make the most of real-time court reporting, you need to use up-to-date technology to get the most accurate and timely reports of depositions, testimonials and other court proceedings.

To find out more about the real-time court reporting service offered by Magna Legal Services, get in touch with us. We are ready to explain the technology we use to capture testimonials and help you organize all the case-related documents you need to win cases for your clients. Contact us today to find out how our real-time court reporting services can help you.