Searching For Work As A Court Reporter?: Why You May Have To Diversify And Related Jobs You Can Work
When you decided to train to become a court reporter, you probably thought that you would be working in a very exciting and fascinating career. After all, court reporters are needed for high-profile cases as well as low-profile criminal charges. If it makes the five o'clock news, it will probably require the presence of a court reporter. However, you probably haven't seen much work, and you may be wondering if you should not try a different career path. As older, more experienced court reporters will tell you, you need to diversify. Here is what diversification means in relation to your career choice, and why it needs to be done.
Diversification and Court Reporting
Contrary to popular belief, many court reporters do not have regular work. Many of them freelance or work as consultants, or they work on a contract basis with the county and state in which they reside. Despite the fact that they make reasonably good money (the median income was about $49,000 in 2014), they make their salaries on a part-time basis and support their regular court reporting wages with other kinds of similar but unrelated work. If you want to meet or exceed this income level this year, you will need to diversify (i.e., work other jobs where you can put your stenographer and typing skills to good use).
Other Jobs You Can Do While You Wait for Work with the Local Courts
When your court reporting work days are particularly slow or painfully lacking, you can keep your skills sharp by working as a closed captioning typist. This type of work you can usually do from home, typing word for word what television characters, news reporters and people in advertisements say for TV stations. The words you type need to be as accurate as possible, since they will be displayed on TVs for the deaf and hard of hearing, and they would not like to miss an important part of a mystery show or detail in the weather forecast because it was not part of the closed captioning wording.
Real-time translation is another job that will keep your skills sharp. If you can type in another language, say French, Spanish or Chinese, then you are more valuable in this line of work because you can type and translate what is said for diplomatic and business meetings. Schools may also need your skills for preparing screen projections and presentations that include wording for their students who cannot hear but can see and read. Regardless of the side jobs you take on as a court reporter, you can still charge your usual hourly rate so that your level of pay is maintained.