Court Reporters and Scanners – Win, Win, Win!
By Rosalie Kramm, CRR, Principal – Kramm Court Reporting, A Veritext Company
Recently the wonderful Mike Miller, Depoman, posted on Facebook – “Asbestos depo, 5 people in the
room, 10+ on the phone. Expert produces 50 pages of handwritten notes. Phone people object to not
having the notes. I scanned them, sent them on, and the deposition went forward.”
Many of the great court reporters bring small scanners to depositions or use their smart phones. I asked
a couple of my brilliant court reporting friends what they use and asked if I could share their advice to
court reporters everywhere.
Marjorie Peters suggested reporters use the CamScanner app. You can use your mobile phone to take a
picture of whatever needs to be scanned. It allows for auto edge cropping if you are so inclined to clean
up the background. The CamScanner generates a high-resolution JPEG or PDF file. CamScanner OCRs
text files and then allows you to email the image. (You can use it also for scanning attorneys’ business
cards, notices…”
Mike Miller advises that the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix1500 is the best solution. He and his brilliant wife, Susan
Perry Miller, will set it up unobtrusively across the room and scan exhibits at breaks, which is particularly
helpful on rush jobs. Looking at the Fujitsu web page, some of the benefits are that it is wireless, uses a
touch screen, has speedy 30 ppm color scanning, and you can scan 50 sheets in the Automatic
Document Feeder. Mike also likes the ScanSnap s1300. It will only scan about 20 pages at a time, but
it is much more portable than the ix500.
Court reporters are carrying a lot of equipment to the job, and a scanner might seem excessive, but
when we are in an intense, high-stake deposition, and can pull off a quick scan, particularly if there are
attorneys who are attending remotely, you will become even more invaluable.
Another scenario I can picture is if you have a scopist working remotely on the job while you’re writing,
and you can send exhibits that attorneys are reading from, it is a win-win-win.
