.nyscra.org Summer 2020 Presidents Message - MemberClicks

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Summer 2020

2 Independence Day Statement

3 Creating a Bright Future

4 Personal Marketing 5 Inadequacy of

Audio-Only Record

7 Relaxation 10 Adjusting During

Covid-19

12 Remembering Arnold Cohen

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President's Message

Dear NYSCRA Members,

These past few months have been

a time of tremendous change and

challenge. No one has been unaffected

by the pandemic and government

guidelines for social distancing efforts.

This has been felt acutely by the legal events. NYSCRA is working with

community, including many of our

Project Steno to offer a day of

colleagues. We must stay strong and workshops on Saturday, October

stay together.

3rd. Also, I am pleased to announce

The changes and challenges

that my mentor and long-time

have not slowed NYSCRA down. We member of my Toastmasters club,

continue to be an association that

Jason Wisdom, will be conducting

works hard to promote awareness of a personal marketing and branding

stenographic court reporting. Back in webinar on Sunday, August 16th.

March, just after the lockdown in New Details for both of these events are

York began, we held a free webinar contained in this newsletter.

about how to conduct a deposition

We recognize, of course, that

on Zoom. In May, we held a free

we are not just part of a community

student webinar attended by over 160 bound together by our profession.

students from about half the states We are also a community of citizens

in the country. Our featured speakers of the country. In light of the recent

were Dominick Tursi, Karen Perlman, events, we chose not to stay silent.

Christopher Day, Yuliya Yemtsova, and On Independence Day, July 4th, we

me. It was incredibly heartening to see released a statement which is found

people offering each other assistance on page 3. It was emailed to all our

on how to navigate New York's

members, posted on our Facebook

Unemployment Insurance website. page to an audience of over 1,400

Court reporting stays strong because followers, and also appears on our

of the community we cultivate.

website. I am proud that the Board

We have some exciting upcoming worked together in relatively short

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NYSCRA OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2019 - 2020

Officers President Joshua Edwards President-Elect Vacant Vice President Karen Santucci Secretary/Treasurer Jean H. Beskin

Board of Directors First Department Howard Gresh Debra A. Levinson Charisse Kitt Second Department Reid Goldsmith Karen Perlman Diane Salters Third Department Harriet Brenner-Gettelman Elizabeth Brucie Dominic M. Tursi Fourth Department Margaret Carney Hannah Cavanaugh Vacant Directors at Large Christopher Day Jessie Waack Donna Sadowski Executive Director Andrea Bower

New York State Court Reporters Association PO Box 8864 Collingswood, NJ 08108 P: 215.858.8023 F: 856.210.1619 nyscra@

President's Message

continued

order to produce a statement of its quality. Recently, on July 7, we held a Board meeting where I created a

new committee called Bar Associations Outreach Committee. The committee's mission is to cultivate lasting relationships and contact with other associations related to the bench and bar. We believe that such relationships are crucial to advocating for our profession, educating our consumers, and sharing relevant information with the many professional associations in New York State. Any member who wishes to be a part of this new committee, please contact our Board immediately.

Additionally, several new volunteers are training to learn how to proctor our online NYRCR exams. Speaking of volunteering, I would like to thank every Board member who has served during my current term. Your willingness to serve and dedication to our profession does not go unnoticed.

This coming November NYSCRA has plans to rent a table at the New York State School Counselors Association convention in Verona, New York. Please reach out to me directly if interested in showing guidance counselors across New York State how wonderful the court reporting profession really is.

My first president's message announced the theme of TRANSformation. Transform, indeed. It was going to happen whether we planned for it or not, whether we welcomed it or not. But as a community that supports each other, we will prevail through the hard times.

Warmly, Joshua B. Edwards NYSCRA President

Independence Day, July 4, 2020

We the Board of the New York State Court Reporters Association wish to take this opportunity to express our position on the following important matters. We recognize the serious injustice that exists, and has existed for far too long, against Black and Brown people in our country, and other communities of color. We have seen it in the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and, sadly, many others. And we also recognize that these are not recent issues, that they have been part of the fabric of our country since its inception. NYSCRA strongly condemns all actions of racial injustice, discrimination, and police brutality.

Joshua B. Edwards, NYSCRA President On Behalf of the Board

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Creating a Bright Future

Project Steno and New York State Court Reporters Association Working Together to Build Awareness

Live webinars. Saturday, October 3 ? 10:30 to 4:30 Eastern Fresh topics and creative ideas to support our profession

Registration: $69. Register HERE

$15 of your registration supports Project Steno's mission to raise awareness of our profession. The remaining portion, after costs, goes to NYSCRA.

Session

Write Clean, Write Fast. All Day? No Sweat!

Speaker

Time

(all times Eastern)

Ed Varallo, RMR, CRR, FAPR Board member, Project Steno Author, The Realtime Writer's Manual and

Ed's Steno Pro

10:30 ? 11:30 .1 CEU (pending)

The Surprising Results of Project Steno's Nationwide Survey (inaugural presentation)

Nancy Varallo, RDR, CRR, FAPR Executive Director, Project Steno

12:00 ? 1:00 .1 CEU (pending)

Developing a High School Program in Your State

Glyn Poage, RDR, CRR, FAPR Board member, Project Steno

2:00 ? 3:00 .1 CEU (pending)

How to Conduct a Basic Training Class

Tiva Wood, RDR, CMR, FAPR Board member, Project Steno

3:30 ? 4:30 .1 CEU (pending)

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NYSCRA PRESENTS

PERSONAL MARKETING

FOR FREELANCE COURT REPORTERS SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, 7:00 ? 8:00 P.M.

Jason Wisdom is the past president of New York Toastmasters and an accomplished public speaker. During this one-hour webinar he will share his story of going from non-working freelancer, to turning down work during a recession. Topics include: -Building a skills base -Finding a niche -Building a reputation -Hard skills and soft skills -Personal branding -Agency relations and building a partnership -Knowing your value -Increasing utilization -Career pacing

MEMBERS $15; NONMEMBERS $25 RSVP at > About NYSCRA > Upcoming Events

Half co rne rf

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The Inadequacy of an Audio-Only Record

By Christopher Day

How many times have we heard that our profession is outdated? There are many people across the country who ask the honest question, "Why don't we just record it?" Why do we have people taking stenographic notes when we could just press a button? Almost invariably these types of questions put us in the hot seat to justify our salaries and explain why stenographic reporting is still the most reliable, equitable, and inexpensive way of keeping the court record safe and accurate.

For many of us, this is a terrifying scenario. Did anyone become a court reporter because they enjoy public speaking? Does anyone reading this think about court reporters as the ideal spokespeople? The truth is court reporting is thought of as a job for introverts1. This creates a scenario where you have a group of stenographers, many of whom are reticent people, surrounded by others that do not understand the value of stenographic reporting. New research is coming out day after day. I can't claim to have all the answers, but I can lay out some common misunderstandings and give all of my fellow introverts and reporters the tools they need to feel confident and secure about the amazing career they've chosen.

First, let's address the issue of garbled audio. In a courtroom or deposition setting, papers are shuffled around, people speak over each other, and hearing can become difficult or impossible. Audio is recorded digitally by an input device taking in the air pressure and turning that into electronic signals. These electronic signals are instructions for a computer or output device to reproduce the sound. Crosstalk and ambient sounds negatively affect the quality of those recordings. And once audio is determined inaudible or indiscernible, there's no transcriber or stenographer who can get it back.

The importance of a stenographer has been briefly touched on in case law here in New York, People v. Ramsey2, where the court said, "Holding that audio recordings are the functional equivalent of stenographic transcripts were belied by the record

in this case." To put that another way, without a qualified stenographer, the record is in danger. It should be noted that our stenographic culture is what differentiates us here. Many of us receive annual union training or attend 30 hours or more of continuing education per cycle. Even those of us who do not join in those activities stay current with industry news to provide the best service possible. We know when the record is in danger of being compromised. We know when to speak up. That alone makes us a better choice for the trial court record.

Leaving protecting the record to an audio monitor or not bothering to hire an audio monitor can lead to hours of reconstruction hearings. Depending on the accounting method, the cost of recording can quickly skyrocket well above the cost of hiring a stenographic reporter.

A New York litigation firm blogged that over $10 million a year is wasted in one Brooklyn courtroom. That estimate was derived from the average hourly cost of attorneys and time spent waiting in court. Using that same logic, recreating just three hours of garbled or lost audio could cost nearly a thousand dollars. Based on a Bureau of Labor Statistics average of $50,000 annual salary for court reporters, three hours for a court reporter to capture the record is far more cost effective than three hours of digitally recording the record and then recreating what might have been said.

The myth that digital recording is less expensive than stenographic reporting needs to be further explored, as the results seem to vary wildly. In one study, a thousand pages produced from digital recordings was 50 percent more expensive than the same number of pages prepared by stenographers3. Storing the average seven-hour day of steno notes can be 500 to 8,000 times smaller than storing seven hours of an audio file. We know that computer storage is cheap. But when you're talking about taking what the public pays now for the storage of digital stenographic notes and multiplying that by 8,000 for audio storage, it's a bad deal.

Even where it may appear to be cost effective

Continued on page 4

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