Module 3: Technology and Operations

Below is an edited transcript of the third and final conversation in the Transitioning to Digital Court Reporting video series. In Module three, court reporting experts and former voice writers Liz Dwyer and Kaci Hardin discuss the technology and operations aspect of digital court reporting.

Want to catch up? Watch module one on embracing digital court reporting, module two on business strategy and implementation, and then head to Rev’s YouTube channel for more insights.

Kaci Hardin:
Okay. Now let's get into really the specifics, if that's okay.

Liz Dwyer:
Sure.

Kaci Hardin:
Technology and operations, and what it means in this new digital world. Let's go into the essential tools and software. What would I need to get started?

Liz Dwyer:
Okay. First of all, I just want to let everybody know that if they go to the AAERT Best Practices Guide and they purchase that, this is all outlined in detail.

Kaci Hardin:
Oh, great.

Liz Dwyer:
As far as microphones and reporting software. To start out, you're going to purchase a recording software, or get a subscription to a recording software. You want to make sure that this has a playback feature, annotations, and timestamps that match. Those are the essential functions. You want to make sure you have good mixers, microphones, and backup recorders.

Kaci Hardin:
Oh, the backup. Have to have that.

Liz Dwyer:
You have to have a backup recorder. Hopefully, you're never going to need it, but you have to have a backup recorder because things break, or human error happens.

Kaci Hardin:
For sure.

Liz Dwyer:
And then you need to have considerations of what kind of jobs you're covering. You're going to cover only virtual proceedings, or you're going to do virtual and in-person.

Kaci Hardin:
Then are you providing the hosting for it, or is the client providing the hosting? Where does that ethically sit in navigating that for your business?

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think those are the main things that you have to consider, but like I said, I think I really would encourage you to go ahead and purchase that best practices guide, and it'll give you all of these considerations in detail.

Kaci Hardin:
Okay. We're going to need recording software, hardware requirements, virtual or in-person. That's kind of the gist of what the digital is going to be doing for you.

Liz Dwyer:
Sure.

In-House vs. Outsourcing: Workflow Strategy

Kaci Hardin:
I think it's really important to hone in on something that we mentioned previously, and that's going to be the advantages of either doing all in-house or outsourcing some of your work. This is sort of the critical moment for the court reporting agency and what they need to decide. 

When you look at that for the production and workflow, what are the benefits of outsourcing versus keeping some of it in-house?

Liz Dwyer:
I have experience with both, with having an in-house team and working with a third-party vendor. In my experience, it's going to be much easier to work with a third-party vendor. You're saving on labor costs. You don't have to hire supervisors. You don't have to worry about scheduling. You don't have to worry about people not having enough work, having too much work, because basically, in plain English, it's not your problem. You're paying for that service. 

The overhead itself goes down. You can't just take a page rate that somebody's charging you and say, "Oh, I have this individual transcriber who charges me a dollar less." You have to take all these things into consideration; the management of them, the scheduling of them, and the availability of them.

Kaci Hardin:
So you get to scale with ease, too, when you make it somebody else's problem. I'm sure that's something you experienced in past lives is, "Oh my goodness, I've got so much work, I have to figure out how to handle this quickly."

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. If you have an in-house team, you're going to have people complaining about being too busy or not having enough work. As we said before, it's feast or famine in this business. I think everybody knows that, and that's what you're going to have to deal with.

Kaci Hardin:
I love the way that you phrased it as, "It's not my problem." I'm just going to focus on growing and scaling my business.

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It takes a huge portion of it off your plate. I mean, I still would recommend having a QC team. You have to have some sort of QC in place for your own business, but it's just a fraction of having a whole in-house transcription team. It's difficult. It's like a whole other division of your company that you'd have to add on.

Quality Control and Vendor Relationships

Kaci Hardin:
For sure. I'll dive into QC and what that means. For the court reporting agency, you essentially want somebody confidence monitoring the transcripts coming in. Does that mean that they have to review every one word-for-word with audio? Not if you found a really viable and solid vendor. You should be able to trust that product. You do want to routinely check it over though, to make sure you're getting what you're paying for.

Additionally, you want somebody that understands if your digital reporters are not providing ample and sustainable audio to your vendor. That's going to be something to navigate. 

So rather than in the in-house model where you're hiring multiple transcriptionists, a transcription manager, an HR professional, a training professional, you really have one source of truth that's going to work hand-in-hand with your outsource vendor and your scheduler for the digital reporters to go out to monitor and navigate that workflow.

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. What are the questions I should be asking of a transcription vendor?

Kaci Hardin:
Let's start with how empowering it is for you to say, "What questions should I be asking?" What you should not do is just look at the offering and the contract in front of you from the potential vendor and say, "Okay. I'm good to go." Ask the questions, because there's a lot of minutiae that goes into the contract in front of you.

• Am I getting proper security compliance with it, and what does that look like?
• Are they maintained and kept?
• How does that impact my workflow as it enters their ecosystem and comes back into mine?
• Are transcriptionists under non-disclosure agreements?
• Do they specialize in legal transcription?
• Can they ensure data sovereignty (e.g., U.S.-only servers)?

They should be able to expressly and immediately answer those questions.

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. I do know that a lot of contracts, with the federal government especially, require that the data be kept on a server within the U.S. and not leave the U.S.

Kaci Hardin:
Right. That’s what you gain by asking these questions—you’re able to confidently bid on new RFPs. You know where the work is going, and it’s upheld by your trusted vendor.

In addition to who touches your sensitive material, you want to assess how it’s delivered. For sensitive contracts, customization might be needed. A good vendor will have a stable product, built by industry experts, but still allow for flexibility. Is that something that you experienced?

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. You’ll find RFPs where you have to promise formatting—cover pages, parentheticals—exactly how the client wants it. You need a vendor who's going to work with you on what your specific client wants.

Vendor Support as a Business Partner

Kaci Hardin:
How does customer support for you play into your ability to pick a transcription vendor?

Liz Dwyer:
It is absolutely essential. It is not something that you can even bend on—that you're able to contact somebody. I've been in the position of trying to get in touch with a transcriber or a transcription vendor and not have someone to get in touch with. It is absolutely essential that you're able to get in touch with someone to communicate issues and errors. 

You could find out that you are missing some audio, for instance, and you need to get that to somebody. Or you could have somebody call you at the last minute and say, "Oh, even though we told you we needed this in two weeks, we need it Monday," and it's Friday afternoon. You have to be able to get in touch with somebody to make your own workflow run smoothly.

Kaci Hardin:
I think that ties back into whatever vendor you're picking and testing—this is an extension of your business. So your pain points should also be theirs. If you're getting the phone call from the judge at 10 o'clock at night on a Friday, it's also their phone call. You work together to navigate that going forward.

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. You're looking for a partner, not just a vendor.

Change Management and Industry Shifts

Liz Dwyer:
Keeping in mind everything that we've just gone through in the past three modules, how can effective change management be implicated?

Kaci Hardin:

Let’s first look at what change management is. It’s affecting the impact that digital reporting can have on your business—improving your margins, your scalability, and your ability to grow. There is a current court reporter shortage. It is a very real problem, and it is limiting access to justice, so let’s navigate this process with you.

These modules are going to express the key pain points and key considerations you're going to have to take into account to grow your business. I hope that really outlines your next steps. You really want to address any employee resistance or misconceptions. You want to make sure those are dispelled. 

You want to find a vendor that’s going to walk through this journey with you, because it can seem dark and scary, but make sure you pick somebody who’s going to walk that with you and has done it before.

Additionally, the total available market out there that’s going to be accessible to digital reporters is only going to grow. We're looking forward to watching this industry really begin to take off and find its footing, and understand that all of these things about them just being button pushers is just fundamentally untrue. 

The product produced by digital reporters has many more points of quality checking and security than anything else out there. We're really excited to watch this grow.

Is that something you’ve seen as well?

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. Going back to what we talked about before, there's going to be no choice but to give digital reporters a seat at the table. Like you said—access to justice. The courts are getting backed up. In states where it's not allowed, I mean, there's a crisis happening. 

There are people who cannot get transcripts, they can't get depositions, they can't get through discovery, and everything is delayed. This really is the solution.

There’s always resistance when technology starts to improve. I think pen writers didn’t like stenographers. Stenographers didn’t like voice writers. And here we are with digital. It's just another step, and there's always resistance.

Kaci Hardin:
Yeah. I can understand why that resistance is scary, so I’m happy we dispelled some of that—knowing that digital is going to be at the forefront of technology, always. Making sure that it's done ethically and it can scale with your company, I think, is going to be key to your success.

Liz Dwyer:
Right. I do want to point out that it doesn’t mean that we can’t all work together. It doesn’t have to be one method, and all the other methods are going to go away. What we're saying is that adding this onto your current business model is really going to help you scale your business. Bottom line is making money when you're in business.

Networking and Industry Support

Kaci Hardin:
Yeah, a hundred percent. We've addressed the resources. The source of truth here for digital is going to be AAERT. It’s a wealth of knowledge.

Liz Dwyer:
Yeah. A great way to start off is to try going to a conference. This year, there's a Unity Conference with STAR and AAERT. I don’t know what’s going to happen next year. Go to a conference and meet people. See that digital reporters are real people. See the different technologies available. It’s unbelievable. Every year it changes—leaps and bounds with technology.

Kaci Hardin:
I think it also helps with networking. More people are in digital than you think—they just don’t openly talk about it. So being at these conferences can really help you see that it’s not as scary as you might perceive out there.

Liz Dwyer:
Absolutely. Connecting with other people in management who are involved in digital reporting is huge. I’ve learned so much just from being at conferences and networking, and meeting different people. “Hey, why don’t you try it this way?” or “We use this vendor,” and it’s huge.

Kaci Hardin:
I’m really happy about everything that we covered in our conversations. I’m hoping that this helps somebody feel really comfortable and confident in their next business moves.

Thank you so much for sitting and talking to me today. Thank you so much for your insights and what you can offer the digital industry as a whole. You're a valuable asset to it.

Liz Dwyer:
You too, Kaci. Your technology expertise blows me out of the water every time. I'm so happy to be able to work with you.