Shooting from the Hip: When A CLVS Loves An RPR

An Interview With Bruce Balmer – MBA, CLVS, CDVS

Shooting from the Hip: When A CLVS Loves An RPR

An Interview With Bruce Balmer – MBA, CLVS, CDVS, conducted by Jan Ballman FAPR, RPR, CMRS; Veritext-Minneapolis

Q: Hello, Bruce! Thanks for making time to be interviewed for THE VERITEXT REPORTER!

A: You’re welcome, Jan!
Q: You’re a CLVS—a Certified Legal Video Specialist. How’d you get your start in videography and in the court reporting industry?

A: I was called to work in the business by my lovely bride, Deborah Dusseljee. She thought it would be great if I were to bring in money working with technology instead of spending it on programs and computers. Engineers don’t do words, but cameras and cables are right in an engineer’s wheelhouse!
Q: So lights, camera, action over English, grammar, punctuation?

A: Yes. Different “strokes” for different folks. Pun intended.
Q: Oh, high five! Good one. Your agency, CompuScripts, recently came into the Veritext family of companies. Which of our offices do you now work with?

A: CompuScripts is based out of South Carolina, so we are on the “Carolinas” team.
Q: Tell us a little bit about CompuScripts. How long has your firm been serving South Carolina?

A: Since the mid-‘90s.
Q: Bruce, you are well-known across NCRA and STAR for all the teaching and training and presenting you’ve done over the past many years in your specialty areas of videography and trial technology. I’ll take it one step further and suggest that if you asked anyone in the land who the techiest videographer in the country is, you’d make EVERYONE’s list. As someone who teaches other videographers and who embraces technological advancement, what do you see as the biggest changes in legal videography, both in the past and on the horizon?

A: Going forward, the computer you carry is going to be more important than the camera in your bag. 4K cameras have made it easy to capture good video. Learning to encode 4K video properly for use at trial will be an art that, while most have not yet mastered, they will need to.

In terms of the biggest changes over the past couple of years, I’d say how “high-definition” and “16:9 resolution” have replaced standard definition, with 4:3 being the default deliverable. Also, DVD-video has basically become defunct.
Q: Yeah…anyone else out there sitting on a library of DVDs that need converting? Hey, Bruce, tell us about your most famous Deponent to date.

A: Sorry; I don’t kiss and tell.
Q: A Videographer & A Gentleman—they should make a movie about you! Okay, how about this one: What was your craziest assignment of all time?

A: What started as a three-hour job ended up being two seven-hour depositions back-to-back. We went through three realtime reporters to finish the job. They were overscheduled and were covering for each other until the next one became available. This was during the time of MiniDV tapes. I don’t know that I had much left in the bag when we finished the job. I was keeping running time with an app I had developed in Excel. We hit the seven-hour mark and I let the attorneys know. The plaintiff attorney allowed the witness to answer the question, and then he literally kicked the witness out mid-sentence when the examining attorney started to ask the next question. I think there were close to 20 attorneys attending. It was a smidge tense.
Q: Twenty attorneys and fourteen hours of testimony? We’re all doing the math in our head and thinking “I’d LOVE that payday!”

A: It was a big one for the reporters. Just one copy for me. The story of a videographer’s life!
Q: So, speaking of LOVE… It’s February, the month of love, so let’s talk about another of your loves—your lovely wife! You married a court reporter! (Clearly, you’re a man of great taste.) Tell us about Debbie. Where and when did you meet and when did you start working together?

A: My bride and I met in St. Joseph, Michigan, in 1985, while I was an engineer at Whirlpool Corporation. Despite the reputation of a court reporter’s memory being compared to that of an elephant’s, Debbie couldn’t remember my name when she introduced me to her parents the first time. I believe she had not yet fully recovered from her prior day’s soiree when she was introduced to me by a mutual friend…and we had to stop at her parents’ house later that day to pick up skis (think snow). Ahh, to be 20 again.

I dragged her down to South Carolina when I was transferred to a KitchenAid plant that Whirlpool had purchased in Blythewood, SC. When the plant closed 10 years later, we stayed put. In Debbie’s eloquent words: “You have a job; I have a business and clients. Go find another job.” As all good husbands would do, I went out and found other work in the area.

I joined forces with Debbie in the business the summer after 9/11. We realized that working together during a crisis is better than working apart.
Q: I’ve always loved Debbie’s sense of humor. And I’m betting that realization was true, not only during a crisis, but also during a pandemic.

A: Absolutely.
Q: I know a lot of couples that work together in this profession. It’s probably easy to find yourself talking business at all hours of the day and night. I’m curious if you and Debbie have certain rules that you try to follow to make sure shop talk doesn’t take over the family dinner table every night?

A: Yes, we do… and Debbie enforces them very well.
Q: May I just say that Debbie has nothing on you in the sense of humor department.

A: Make sure you tell Debbie!
Q: I was going to ask who’s funnier, but I’ll leave that to the Veritext Reporters to decide! So who is more “chill” when it comes to job stress–the court reporter, or the videographer?

A: That would depend on whether the job was a picture-in-picture assignment or not.
Q: Or whether English was the expert witness’s second language or not, I suppose.

A: Right. Picture-in-picture depos don’t really stress Debbie out, and foreign accents don’t really stress me out.
Q. LOL. You don’t say! I assume you and Debbie have worked a lot together over the years as a court reporter / videographer combo. Do attorneys seem to dig the husband-wife team thing?

A: Actually, because we have different last names, most clients don’t know we’re married. At least before the depo. They’re usually not surprised if we tell them we’re married after the deposition, however, because apparently we discuss things like we’re married when we talk to each other.
Q: Oh, I get that! I have family in the business too with different last names, and there’ve been plenty of times when people have looked at us during a particular exchange where we’ve had to say, “Oh… perhaps you didn’t know that we’re sisters.”

A: Yeah… and then it all makes sense.
Q: Lots of family businesses in the court reporting industry. Bruce, what do you and Debbie do to pivot away from work and focus on leisure?

A: We travel. We dine. We bike. She writes. I run. I’d love to say we still play golf, but it’s been a few years since Debbie has played. We support the University of South Carolina Gamecocks and are cheering on the women’s basketball team to another national championship this year. We’re fortunate enough (or old enough) to have tickets to the games. Attending a live game in COVID time is … lonely? We were very involved with our church before COVID. Unfortunately, our church campus closed permanently the weekend before the COVID shutdown began, and we’ve been stuck home on Sundays, like much of our age group. We’re thankful we’ve attended churches with a strong online presence – it’s allowed us to stay connected to our faith and remain healthy during this tough past year.
Q: The online world has saved us on so many fronts. Bruce, I’m sure you’ve worked with tons of court reporters over the years, and you’re married to a darn good one. In your observation, what makes “a great court reporter”?

A: Confidence. As a videographer, I can tell when they have it. For instance, when dealing with a super-fast witness, the great reporters are able to kind of roll their eyes as if to say, “Can you believe how fast this guy’s talking… and I’m still getting it?!” They just work with confidence.
Q: How has the pandemic changed legal videography?

A: Well, I can cover a videoconference deposition in any part of the country without leaving my desk.
Q: Brue–last question. Let’s finish big. What’s the verrrry best part of your job?

A: Remember, I’m an engineer. I enjoy engineering solutions with new equipment and software. I like reading manuals and thinking way out of the box. The coolest new toy in the rig? The Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro ISO. Unbelievable amount of technology at a market-disrupting price point.
Q: Did you just say you enjoy reading manuals? And you lost me at Blackmagic, but I assume that every videographer out there is either nodding or googling right now. Bruce, you’ve been a great sport. It’s wonderful having you and Debbie on the team. Welcome to the Veritext family… and keep rocking the video world with all your out-of-the-box innovation!

A: Thank you. Stay well!

JAN BALLMAN | FAPR, RPR, CMRS, DSA-MN - Veritext

About Jan Ballman – FAPR, RPR, CMRS – Principal, Minneapolis

Jan began her career as a court reporter in 1981. In 1990, she was elected President of the state court reporters association. This experience afforded the opportunity to meet many outstanding court reporters and industry leaders. In 1993, Jan collaborated with two highly regarded colleagues–Jayne Seward and Lisa Richardson–to form Ballman, Richardson & Seward. Five years later, Jan led the merger of BR&S with two well-known and highly respected firms–Schultz & Sorenson; and Oliver, Mitchell & Maves—and launched Paradigm Reporting & Captioning on January 1, 1998.

After a 20-year career as a court reporter, Jan retired her steno machine in 2002 in favor of taking the helm of Paradigm on a full-time basis.

A recognized leader at both the state and national level, Jan was bestowed Minnesota’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, by the Minnesota Association of Verbatim Reporters and Captioners in 2004. In 2010, Jan was elected to serve on the Board of Trustees of the National Court Reporters Foundation and was honored to accept the appointment as Chair of the Board from 2014 to 2016. In August of 2017, Jan was inducted into as a Fellow into the Academy of Professional Reporters. Currently, Jan Ballman is the only court reporter in Minnesota to have attained the professional distinction of FAPR.

Outside of her chosen profession, Jan enjoys working with local nonprofits, mentoring tomorrow’s leaders, and exploring the world of wine. Since 2011, Jan has been delighted to chair “Legal Wine Lovers,” an official affinity group of Minnesota Women Lawyers.