Get a Scopist. Get a Life

You’re a court reporter. When you first launched yourself into this career, you knew court reporters worked long hours, but you probably didn’t realize just how many it took to get the job done.

Now that you’ve been working awhile, your dictionary is robust, your writing is improving all the time, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’re ready to hire a scopist. If you can answer “yes” to these questions, then you are:

1. Do I write clean notes?
2. Do I spend my evenings and weekends either editing or proofing?
3. Does my life revolve around deadlines?
4. Do I want to have a life outside of work?

Now that you’re ready, the next question is how to go about finding a scopist you can trust. With all the scoping services listed online, as with any other service, start by asking colleagues for referrals.  Also, there are scopist groups on both Facebook and LinkedIn.  Join these groups and let them know you’re looking for a scopist, what your requirements are, and provide an email address where you can be reached.

Once you’ve found a scopist, don’t immediately throw all your work at them. Bring them into your world slowly. Take some small jobs, send them the format, the insert files, a PDF of the exhibits, and the steno/audio files. When you get those initial jobs back, proofread them carefully. Keep the lines of communication flowing between you and your scopist. If (s)he’s editing something differently from the way you’d like it, tell him/her.  Communication is the key to a successful partnership.

After you’ve used that scopist awhile, if you want to begin increasing your workload and relying upon him or her more often, ask. Don’t assume they’re available, because they may well be juggling other reporters’ work. Finding a scopist who will work for you exclusively so that you can take all-day every-day jobs may take awhile, but when you find “that perfect fit,” it can be life changing.

Keith Shreckengast, a reporter with Planet Depos, hailed his scopist, Darlene Williams, as being a “life changer.” As he explained their relationship, they use Eclipse’s Connection Magic, Version 6, to connect with one another live throughout the entire course of the proceedings. In fact, Darlene can hear everything that is being said as she’s seeing Keith’s steno stream into her home office. In many cases, by the time Keith walks away from his assignment, Darlene has completed the transcript, ready for Keith to hand over as a rough draft; final transcript shortly thereafter. All Keith has to do is toggle through her questions and do a quick proof. As Keith explained the pre- and post-Darlene era, “I now have a life!”

A side-by-side comparison of the cost-to-value proposition of having just such a reporter/scopist relationship might include the following: Reporter A takes 200 pages per day for five days straight, totaling 1000 pages. That reporter pays his scopist $1.00/pg, but the reporter earns $3.00/pg for the original and $1.50 for the copy sale.  Although the check written by the reporter to the scopist was $1,000, that reporter earned $3,500. Reporter B, on the other hand, went out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday because he scopes his own work, taking only 600 pages, earning just $2,700. In addition to earning a solid $800 less, Reporter B will lose half of his weekend editing Friday’s job. Over the course of one month alone, Reporter B earned $3200 less than Reporter A; and over one year’s time, his lost earning potential amounts to a whopping $38,400!

Life’s waiting for you. What are you waiting for?