Judicial Council Watcher believes that court reporters serve an essential task in the courtroom of keeping the record, ensuring that what happens in a courtroom is both fair and credible. So we were taken aback when we got news that dozens of court reporters were being laid off across the state and that for the most part civil matters will now require that you BYOCR or bring your own court reporter. While we would first suggest that the legislature gut the AOC and restore court reporting as an essential function in every courtroom, that isn’t going to happen overnight.
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Judicial Council Watcher has created a page labeled Court Reporters by County/Court and wishes to list court reporters that are available to litigants and their attorneys to keep the record, be they in trial or in depositons. Our first preference is to list individual court reporters that as of recent events, no longer work for the courts. We would prefer these listings over established court reporting businesses. (added for clarification: We will list ALL court reporting freelancers and businesses throughout California that drop us a note)
If you are a court reporter and interested in participating in this free referral service so that you can reach out to the thousands of court professionals that read this blog daily, please take a look at our court reporters by county/court page and supply the information necessary for us to list you. There is no charge for this service and we are providing it as a public service both to the court reporting community and to legal professionals alike.
Please Note:
Customers will need your contact information to reach you. Please be sure to provide us all of the contact information where you can be reached for business, such as a phone number, an email address and if you have one, a web site. Without your permission to publish your contact information, we cannot post a referral because no one will be able to reach you.
Here is what I have thus far from courts using the private message window to notify JCW that people in their courts read this blog:
Plumas
Siskiyou
Shasta
Tulare
Yolo
Sacramento
Sutter
Solano
Contra Costa
Marin
San Mateo
Santa Clara
Santa Cruz
Kern
Riverside
San Bernardino
San Diego
L.A
Orange
Alameda
Added since last roll call:
San Francisco
Nevada
Glenn
Amador
Placer
Napa
If you are a court worker in any county not mentioned and you or someone you know reads judicialcouncilwatcher in the courts, kindly drop me a confidential note in my private message window
_______________________________________________
CCRA URGES DEPO FIRMS TO HIRE;OFFERS FREE MEMBERSHIP;
SUPPORTS B-Y-O-C-R
Greetings!
NOW is the time to help. HIRE a laid-off court reporter with court experience and when law firms need to BYOCR — Bring Your Own Reporter — you’ll have them ready. Advertise to your clients that you offer this service. It will help you and help them. New clients may come your way. The Bench and the Bar will be assured that the record is preserved and the rights of litigants are protected. Digital recording is not an option and it is unlawful to use digital recording except in limited civil and misdemeanor proceedings.
How CCRA is going to help:
(1) CCRA will renew any CCRA member’s membership for FREE if their renewal date comes due while they are laid off.
(2) CCRA will offer a FREE one-year membership to any nonmember who is currently laid off.
(3) CCRA suggests the following link to connect with lawyers to BYOCR:
https://judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/new-page-free-service-court-reporters-by-county-court/
Please contact the CCRA office for more details.
CCRA protects the united interests of the freelance and official field. We urge everyone to help!
CCRA – Advancing our profession for over 100 years!
Judicial Council Watcher 
courtflea
October 6, 2011
So what is occuring in larger counties is that some court reporters are no longer employees of the court but still can work in the courts. Many small counties have been doing this for years in civil matters. It saves the court money of having to collect court reporters fees from attorneys, having to make court reporters available/scheduling them, and of course saves the court the cost of paying benefits and salaries to court reporters. However, I have heard from court reporters that have been doing this for years that it allows them to have more flexible hours, allows them to pick and choose cases they report, and they actually make more money this way. But obviously everyone has their own preference, employee vs. self employed. Not for me to say.
JusticeCalifornia
October 7, 2011
I think you disagree, courtflea, but the courts should be providing court reporters.
Every court should provide the public with the basics for all substantive proceedings– an ethical, impartial judge; a good court clerk, and a professional court reporter.
It is shocking, for example, that parents are losing their children in courtrooms throughout the state and the proceedings are not memorialized.
A record is a necessity, not a luxury reserved for the wealthy.
Wendy Darling
October 7, 2011
Published today, Friday, October 7, from The Metropolitan News Enterprise, by Sherri Okamoto:
Superior Court Offers Commissioners Incentive to Step Down
By SHERRI M. OKAMOTO, Staff Writer
http://www.metnews.com/
Long live the ACJ.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 7, 2011
JCW wishes to thank the many employed court reporters across California and the California Court Reporters Association for stepping up to the plate and assisting displaced court reporters across California. Together we can make a difference!
courtflea
October 8, 2011
JC, in civil cases, the parties pay for the court reporters (just like they pay jury fees) so it is not a matter of provision of services. If you want to file a civil case, you better have money. Wheather or not the reporters are employees of a court is also not a issue to litigants, you just need to hire one for the court proceedings. Of course it matters to court reporters to be either self employed or employed by the court. No arguement here, just stating the options. I wish all of the court reporters going through this horrible time well.
JusticeCalifornia
October 9, 2011
courtflea, participation in many types of cases is involuntary or unavoidable– for example family court proceedings. Virtually everything including children, property, income, reputation, child safety — really every aspect of life– is at stake. The issues are complex, the rules, procedures, forms, and laws are a maze– and the vast majority of family court litigants are self-represented. The most unbelievable travesties can and do go down. These proceedings should be routinely reported by a professional court reporter, so there is a record of what happened. Trying to discern or unravel what happened after the fact is a challenge under the best of circumstances. A good record of the proceedings can make what happened crystal clear; conversely without a record of the proceedings it can be virtually impossible. What did each party say, what did the judge say?
Think Katie Tagle. Very young pro per. Do you think Katie or others like her had/have a clue about scheduling or can afford to hire a court reporter in advance for any hearing, let alone a five or six minute ex parte proceeding which ultimately (as it did in Katie’s case) may have life or death consequences for a child?
But how important a transcript of a five minute ex parte family court proceeding can be. . . .
Click to access Tagle-Garcia-Transcript-Court.pdf
Court reporters in family court are a necessity, not a luxury.
It is no accident that in Marin County, where many a court reporter has memorialized reprehensible Marin Court conduct (including the transcribed report of Kim Turner’s now infamous directive to destroy child custody evidence) Kim Turner has engaged in a long-running campaign to eliminate court reporters, even sending available reporters to sit quietly in their offices rather than to a courtroom to report family court proceedings. In fact, there was supposed to be an AOC investigation of Turner and this wasteful/harmful practice of hers last year– it appears that investigation has (conveniently) been stalled to focus on AOC priorities.
Judicial Council Watcher
October 9, 2011
Wow. Lying about email, email that would be effortlessly evidenced. That’s a pretty bold assumption that seems to have cost a child their life.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-504083_162-504083.html?keyword=katie+tagle
And a court reporter documented a broken process……
Wendy Darling
October 9, 2011
San Bernardino County and the San Bernardino County Superior Court.
Hey, isn’t that where Stephen Nash went?
Long live the ACJ.
Minute Order!
October 9, 2011
MEH – Minute Orders are the Ticket to Lifetime Employment for Judges.
Since judges are presumed at law to be correct, why bother with Court Reporters?
Who needs ’em? We have perfect judges after all! They pay attention to everything, remember everything, and never get anything wrong! With Court Reporters, the people might tell the judges what for. How radical.
The point is well made that most pro per parties simply lack the pre-acquired sophistication to think about hiring a court reporter.
A few points for the record:
1) The San Bernardino County Superior Court, Joshua Tree Branch, directly employs court reporters for civil cases, and does not require litigants to pay for the Court Reporter’s time in the Court for civil cases. Transcript production and copies are negotiated by parties directly and privately with the Court Reporter.
However, obtaining a transcript can take months because transcripts for criminal cases take priority. One who knows a proceeding will take more than 4 hours might prefer to hire their own Court Reporter who can promise faster delivery.
2) Katie Tagle is the mother of murdered Baby Wyatt Garcia who three San Bernardino County Judges decided to hand over to his psychopathic father after Tagle told each of them that the father had sent email and phone text messages threatening harm to her. Two of the judges slandered Ms. Tagle in open court with a charge of lying to the Court. The last testimony was that the father threatened in email to kill the baby and himself. He proceeded to do just that.
3) The transcripts were not completed in time to save the baby suffering several bullets shredding his body, nor to prevent Katie Tagle and grandmother Brown from the necessity of mounting an election campaign to unseat Robert Lemkau from his judicial position.
Stunningly, even after the transcripts were released, fifty (50 of 78!) San Bernardino County judges, and dozen others who operate in the judicial/LEO fraternity publicly endorsed Robert Lemkau for re-election.
Numerous judges said they personally reviewed the file and “found no error”. Yeah right.
The Standard of Review for Appeal uses that “no error” term as well. However, the rules by which justices judge judges are massively weighted to find “no error”. In fact, despite the presumption being totally illogical and disproved by empirical fact that 1 in 5 California appeals result in full reversal, the California Judiciary prances around reality with the charade that judgements of all judges are “presumed correct”, and that Jackson v. Virginia, supra, 443 U.S. 307, People v. Johnson, 606 P. 2d 738 – Cal: Supreme Court 1980, Justice Elkington’s dissent in People v. Blum (1973) 35 Cal. App.3d 515 [110 Cal. Rptr. 833], California Constitution ARTICLE 6 Section 11 (c), and Code of Civil Procedure section 909 are systemically but unconstitutionally ignored by discretion of every judge and justice in the State whenever the decision of a judge is questioned.
Fortunately, transcripts were eventually produced which were critical to Katie Tagle finally being believed. The People supported her even as the judiciary decided to close ranks and protect themselves. About 67 percent of the people voted to replace Lemkau with a renegade DA Hoskin who challenged a seated judge based on the Baby Wyatt murder. Had no transcript been available, the event would be just another act of negligence, and reckless disregard for the truth by local judges. Unfortunately, even with a transcript, a dead baby, and an unseated Lemkau, NONE of the judges and attorneys that endorsed Lemkau publicly has championed any systemic reform to prevent re-occurrence of such events.
The Lemkau endorsers, including some rather injudicious statements by the top San Bernardino County judges in the county reviling the highly successful challenger Hoskin are at: http://www.morongobasinombudsman.com/judges/robert-lemkau.html
Wendy Darling
October 10, 2011
As was observed above, the San Bernardino Superior Court is where Stephen Nash went as the Court’s new CEO when Nash left the AOC.
Coming from the AOC, Nash ought to fit right in with the the way they do things there in San Bernardino.
Long live the ACJ.
antonatrail
October 10, 2011
I heard years ago CA AOC hired someone from FL with, shall we say, a less than perfect past in financial matters. Was Nash from FL?
Judicial Council Watcher
October 11, 2011
Please see the update in the primary post in red. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to post several referrals.
Reason: No contact information was provided to release to prospective customers.
john doe
October 12, 2011
some cities are trying to regulate what they will pay and it is not in compliance with the statewide fee schedules of california. someone needs to address this issue.
scopistservices
November 12, 2011
Great Info!!
http://scopingservices.wordpress.com