Realtime plus Rough Drafts

[Lindsay Pinkham]

So I'm interested in other rptrs' experience with this.  Historically, first we had the ability to produce rough drafts before there was realtime.  Let's say it was at $X/page.  Then when realtime first came out, my experience was that was $Y/page (sometimes the same as X, sometimes a little higher), and that automatically included a follow-up rough draft.  

Now I see that a lot of agencies are separating the prices.  Some charge $Z/page, which is higher than the RT price alone,  but less than the RT + rough price.  Others are just adding the RT and rough prices together, which is in effect doubling your page rate.  

But when the RT and rough are now separate charges, it seems to me you must inform the atty of that and allow him to choose whether he wants to order the rough in addition to the RT.  I actually had a client the other day who got RT via his own iPad turn down the rough!  Which is not exactly an incentive for me to work my butt off during the depo and recesses cleaning stuff up and making globals for the anticipated rough order.  It also clued me in to the fact that I need to put some passwords in my CaseViewNet to not allow the client to save the transcript on his device, if all he'll pay for is the viewing of the RT.  On the other hand, if he's not paying for a follow-on rough, does he have the right to take home my raw, untouched rough on his device?  Because most of the time I provide RT via my own iPads, and the clients don't get to take home my untouched rough.

What are you experiences and opinions about this?

[Quyen]

It's not that the agencyies agree or disagree. The reduced rates or combo rates are charged because the agencies can, and reporters will still take the job.

[Lindsay Pinkham]

I meant getting them to agree to the reporter's desired rate!

[Quyen]

The reduced combo rate is not as bad as the included rate, which means there is no extra charge for the rough in addition to the real time.