What do you do if you forgot to get spelling?

[Heather]

I forgot to get the spelling of the officer's name from the police report and they didn't mark it as an exhibit. What do I do? Thanks.

Heather

[Quyen]

I really try my best to spell names accurately. In your case, I would call the police department and say something like this: "Hi, my name is So-and-So, and I am a court reporter at Officer ____'s deposition. I neglected to get the spelling of his name. Would you please spell it for me."

They may or may not spell it for you, for reason of the officer's security, if anything. But since you already know his name, I don't see why they wouldn't.

You could try Googling it. Perhaps he was involved in something newsworthy, and there's an online article that might refer to him. Well, how do you type in his name if you don't even know how to spell it? you ask. Spell it as closely or in as many variations as you can think of, along with the city that he works in. Oftentimes (I use Yahoo! search myself), the search engine will suggest spellings for you.

You could also post his name here and see if anyone might be familiar with such a name.

You could call the attorney and just ask him for the spelling.

OR ... as a last resort, you could spell his name the best way you know how and slap a [phonetic] after it. :)

[Janet]

You can also try www.peoplefinders.com. I've found some spellings that way.