Reporters are experts at gathering information and preserving it in formats that are quickly accessible and readily usable. They are transmodalists, capturing thoughts expressed in speech and converting them into text that can be read, searched and studied. Today's court reporters are highly trained professionals who continue to educate themselves to meet national and state requirements, as well as to keep abreast of the business, legal and technological environment. Most reporters apply this skill in a law-related setting such as a court or a deposition and they have harnessed technology to prepare accurate records of trials, depositions and other legal and business proceedings.
Court reporters are officers of the court.
Many court reporters are also members of the National Association of Court Reporters and subscribe to a code of professional ethics. Court reporters are front and center at controversial and highly publicized cases-criminal trials, millionaire divorces, federal government corruption trials, lawsuits against everyone from heavy metal groups to public figures to embezzlers. A court reporter not only records history, but also contributes to it through technology that keeps all parties in litigation working at a swift pace and enables counsel to quickly analyze each day's events. They may also make suggestions to judges regarding courtroom administration and procedures. This service, also used in classrooms and doctor's offices, is called realtime captioning and is primarily for the benefit of people with hearing impairments.