Edmonton and Calgary Court Reporters
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ’s
Over time we have been asked various questions about our court reporting services, what exactly we provide, how things work and some other general interest things.
To assist you with things we have put these together here in this FAQ. This will help to guide you with knowing some of the core areas of our services and things you wanted to know about IR.
How can you schedule court reporting services with IR?
Scheduling a court reporter is as easy as giving us a call or using our online booking form. You may also send us an email – info@indreporters.com.
Our phone numbers are available on our Contact Page.
Where are your court reporting offices located?
IR has a virtual office location in Calgary and a full-service office in Edmonton. For the location details, follow these links:
Calgary Office
Edmonton Office
Does IR charge for Remote Questionings?
No, we do NOT bill clients when we are providing Remote connections to parties. If there is one party remote or all parties, IR will not charge any additional rates to provide court reporting services in this scenario. Our goal is to make things as easy, efficient and seamless as possible.
Does IR provide deposition services for US attorneys?
Yes, our staff, in-house legal videographer and team of court reporters have been providing deposition reporting for 30+ years to US attorneys. From general discovery work to complex regulatory matters, our qualified team will ensure you receive excellent services from start to finish.
Does Independent Reporters have conference rooms for us to use in Calgary or Edmonton?
Yes, we do have conference rooms available in our Edmonton office for client use. The Edmonton office has a large, comfortable boardroom and also a smaller discovery room for clients. High-speed WiFi is available and our rooms in Edmonton are complimentary when booked in conjunction with our court reporting services.
In Calgary we can arrange a centrally located boardroom and pass that expense fees back to you.
If you need to schedule a conference room without a court reporter we can provide a daily rental fee. Contact us to learn more.
Does IR provide court reporters and related services outside of Calgary or Edmonton?
Yes, we do! Our court reporters do travel to various areas in the province of Alberta. If you have a file that needs services outside of our two core cities, Calgary and Edmonton, just let us know and we can provide options for you to consider.
What exactly is real-time court reporting?
Real-time court reporting is a service that is used in discovery, depositions, hearings, trials and arbitrations. It is an advanced service for lawyers that allows them to read, in real-time, questions and answers during proceedings. The live transcript can be viewed on their own devices, such as a laptop or tablet, and provides them to focus on what is being said in the proceedings. The real-time feed is searchable, can be marked or have notes added.
Real-time reporting is especially useful in large cases where testimony from each day is needed for review in preparation for the following days. Real-time also provides counsel with a greater comprehension of the spoken word during a proceeding and can help to speed up the questioning process.
What other legal services does IR provide to the legal community?
IR provides a full range of court reporting services for general litigation, such as discovery and depositions. Additionally, we provide court reporting for all aspects of civil litigation, public hearings, realtime court reporting services for trials and complex arbitrations.
Other services include legal video, video conferencing, conference rooms, exhibit linking and video syncing.
If we need to cancel services, will we be charged?
Yes, there is a charge if you cancel court reporting services once our office has confirmed with you the business day prior that your file is proceeding.
Remember, your court reporter has been scheduled for you for the day of services you have requested and confirmed.
When you do cancel it is very unlikely that the reporter can be assigned to another file, especially if it is in-person.
Contact us for billing details on our rates and fees associated with cancellation for court reporting, legal video or video conferencing services.
What electronic transcript formats do you provide to clients?
Clients receive both an ASCII text file as well as a PDF file for any transcript that they order. The ASCII files provided will easily import into most legal programs.
Transcript orders will also have the keyword index summaries in PDF.
What are Certified Legal Video Services used for?
Legal video services are primarily used for US depositions. However, in Canada, it can also be used in De Bene Esse evidence, which is a questioning before a trial of a witness that is old, very ill, or will be out of the country and unable to provide their evidence at trial.
Providing counsel with a video of the witness for US depositions is beneficial for review of the evidence, body language and emotion of a witness. The transcripts taken during the testimony can be synced, along with the exhibits, so that they can be searched and viewed at specific locations of the video evidence. Contact us to learn more about the technical aspects of this service.
How can Video Conferencing Services be used in a legal environment?
Since we started providing video conferencing services in 2004, we have seen the uses of these services expand. The general use of video conferencing is allowing a witness to attend a trial or questioning from a remote location, especially if travel costs may be prohibitive.
Other uses we have seen clients using the services for their own remote attendance. The ability for counsel in Fort McMurray to connect and question a witness in Edmonton or Calgary significantly helps to reduce expenses and billing time to clients.
What is exhibit linking?
Exhibits introduced and marked during a witness’s testimony can be added to and become part of the transcript. With exhibit linking you will have instant access to the exhibit any time that it is referenced in the testimony. This lets counsel click on the exhibit reference and pull up the exhibit to review. Exhibit linking saves time in searching for the exhibits and keeps everything associated with the transcript as one record.
What is that machine the court reporter is using?
That machine that your court reporter uses is known as a steno or stenotype machine. You may have noticed that they with fewer keys than a standard QWERTY keyboard and you may also have seen that there are no letters on any of the keys.
All strokes from the steno machine are transferred to a computerized dictionary on the court reporter’s computer. Those strokes are processed and matched to translate the steno text into English words. Another difference with a steno keyboard is that the court reporter can press multiple keys in a single stroke to create words. This is part of the main reason why they can “type” 225 wpm or more versus a normal typist.
How many words per minute can a court reporter write?
To be qualified as a legal, certified court reporter in Alberta, you must have a typing speed of up to 225 words per minute. Generally, legal proceedings average 180 wpm with bursts up to, or over, 250 wpm.
Did you know that the fastest speed written by a court reporter was 360 wpm with an accuracy rate of 97.23%? This was performed at the NCRA 2004 summer convention and is officially noted in the Guinness World Records.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-realtime-court-reporter-(stenotype-writing)/