What’s a Casamo Court Reporter’s Secret Weapon? Take a Look at How We Stay Sharp in the Courtroom
You feel pretty good about your typing skills. When drafting a letter, you feel your fingers fly across the keyboard like you were mastering a challenging Rachmaninoff masterpiece for piano. You just know you’re a great typist, but even at your best, you probably clock in at about 70 words per minute or so. That’s about three times slower than people typically speak—so your standard keyboard wouldn’t cut it in the courtroom.
Court reporters have a secret, though—we don’t use the standard QWERTY set up. Instead of the classical typing—your own Rachmaninoff skills—think of our keyboard as something more along the lines of minimalist Philip Glass. This would be the keyboard of our stenotype, which only has 22 keys.
How Can We Create the Symphony of Your Court Proceedings With Only 22 Keys?
There’s a reason most court reporters have at least two years of school and several years of practice under their belt—court reporting is a complex art. We use more than one finger at a time like a QWERTY typist. Our technique is more akin to a world-renowned concert pianist, creating complex chords (it’s no coincidence we call it chording!) by depressing multiple keys at once to create a new sound.
The difference between a stately Steinway grand piano and our portable stenotype keyboard (besides the obvious) is that while each keyboard looks exactly the same, each court reporter will have his or her own method of combining chords to maximize the ability to record your every word. The art of court reporting takes time, patience, and years of training, but the final product is well worth the effort.
When it comes to your trial needs, trusting the record in the capable hands and ears of our virtuoso court reporters is an easy choice. Call the trusted firm of Casamo & Associates today to learn more about our federal case reporting services.
