What percentage of reporters do realtime?

[Martha R]

What do you think the percentage is?   Years ago it was a specialty that only top reporters engaged in.  Now it is becoming more commonplace.  I don't do it and don't want to, but if I am going to lose out on good work, it has got me wondering.   I am at the end of my career and don't have conflicts and have changed my writing considerably but still not at a consistent tran rate of 2 percent or less untrans on the tough jobs, so I don't feel I am there yet.   And then on a horrible job it would be-- well, horrible.   I am feeling pressured by my office that "if only I could do it" attitude. 

[Janiece Young]

If you start working at it every day a little bit at a time, you will get there.  I provide realtime and I still work every day developing new briefs.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I do RT and all my friends do it too.  I think it's more commonplace to see reporters providing this service so they don't lose out on the good work. 

[Kerry F]

Martha,

I'm with you.  Hang out at 2 percent.  But I feel I am lucky that I can still write two full days in a row, all day jobs since I've been doing this for 37 years.  My fingers just don't have the strength they used to and unless the job is under 200 wpm I cannot keep my untrans down.  You say 2 percent.  I thought you needed to be under 1 percent, realistically, to do realtime.  I make up new briefs every day as I find the average depo anymore is 240 to 250 wpm. 

[Martha R]

Yes, I have heard 1 percent, too.   I don't know if that's possible for me no matter how slow it is. My fingers sometimes have a mind of their own.   I don't even have conflicts or untrans of normal to hard words.   I have a notepad of hundreds of things I've changed, and it has helped a lot.  Still have more to go.  But I've been CRing for a looooong time, too.    I am like you.  Lucky to work a lot without RT but I am noticing a lot of people do it, which is fine.  I am glad they are doing it and not me (for now).  

I saw on another site a reporter showed her untran rate and it was .00 something.  She had 52 untrans for 300 pages.  I can't even fathom that.

[Kerry F]

Well said Martha.  Sometimes I feel my fingers do have a mind of their own, not connected to my brain!!!  

[D Sanders, RDR, CRR]

I often wondered this myself.  If you pursue even a RT-like substance, your edit time will go down substantially and if you are asked for a RD, that will be better too.  I was doing realtime yesterday and my tran rate was 0.13 and I wrote pres/piss and they thought it was funny.  I guess precipice was not in my dictionary and I wrote peril but the "helper" in the software turned it to payroll LOL. The attorney is mouthing over to me "peril" and i'm like I kNow!  We all laughed about it on a break.  This was a good group of attorneys.

 

Anyhoo, I digress.   I have often seen people state their tran rates sometimes and I always try and ask for clarification.  Bc in my software, if you're writing 2.0 something and want to do RT, that's not good at all.  I turned my tran statistics on about 3 weeks ago and of course you have to parse through the untrans related to the job but I am Finally starting to see a trend - I guess.  It's hard unless you're not working on the same case every day to build that job dictionary. 

 

Bottom line is if you work on your writing, you will see the benefit.  I promise. It may not always be evident but it's there, slowly and surely.  "Take That to the bank." <movie quote>

[Kellie Zollars]

If you are going to work even five more years it's worth it.  Think 401(k) contributions and Social Security benefits would be higher.  They may be much lower if you don't.   You probably are already losing out on good jobs and lots more money.  You would immediately add $1+ a page to what you make now per attorney ordering on top of your regular rates.  Even if they don't want realtime, some want immediate rough drafts where you'd get a slightly-lower-than-realtime fee.  Reporting firms want rough drafts to get to the attorney an hour or two after the depo ends, not the next day.   

I started learning how to do realtime in the early '90s.  We had many multichoice options for untranslates back then, where you tabbed through and picked which word you wanted.  I was very lucky that a friend of mine who had just opened her own firm was "encouraging" us to come to classes she was offering every Saturday.   Of course, realtime back then did not have the same standards it does today.  I highly suggest going to Anita Paul's seminars.  She gets you motivated and provides so much support and inspiration (I went over 10 years ago, but hear it's still good).  Mark Kislingbury has a great theory of writing short on all the common words and phrases so you have time to write the longer words, which I am now trying to incorporate more of.  He does get a bit extreme on some though :).  I used/use the Post-It note method (attach post-it to machine or computer) and worked on one or two briefs or family of briefs per week.  

Unless your untran count lists the same word not translating 50 times, I have to agree with the 1%.  In my Case Catalyst software, that 1% doesn't include the mistrans, word parts, and other things that come up wrong so there is still cleaning up to do.

Go to Facebook and join The Brief Exchange for briefs younger reporters are using that you've never thought of briefing ;)    If you aren't taking a lot of fast jobs, speed building will help a lot.  The faster you are, the easier it is to write well, even with older fingers.   Best of luck.  

[Martha R]

Thanks for the reply.   I have done everything you suggested! I first started off decades ago applying Ed Varallo's realtime stuff and years later went to Anita Paul. seminar  She is good, but amazingly I didn't learn much from her because I had already done most of the changes she suggested.  She is very inspiring though.  I never went to her advanced classes though.

I have seen Mark K, too, but didn't get his book because for the past six years I have been working my way through Brief Encounters book (to the point where the book is literally falling apart), and that is enough to keep me busy.  I am amazed to find from Facebook how much reporters brief stuff.   I was thinking of trying Magnum Steno but don't know if I could commit myself to it, practicing daily.

But like I was saying in a prior post, even when it is slow I make stupid mistakes.  I think my synapses aren't like normal people.   And I am not a stupid person.   But  remember the "sweet young things" that breezed through reporting school with such ease?   Well, that WASN'T me.   I got an A for effort and passed all the academic stuff so easily but the machine never was my strength.  It was my extremely hard work ethic or just putting up with a lot of sh*t (reading through bad notes in the old days/having mis-trans in the present time) that got me by, not proficiency on the machine.

Actually now I can confidently say I'm the best reporter I've been, but apparently it still isn't good enough.  Well, I will keep on keeping on.   When I consistently get 1% I guess I know I am ready.  

I am assuming that 1% is all untranslates, even proper names.  Of course, if there is a lot of proper names it might be higher, but in, say, a normal job.

[D Sanders, RDR, CRR]

Keep working at it.  You will improve.  I'm with you on the Mark K stuff.  It's just too much to try and change.  I think it's good for the younger reporters to do.  Mark is a great guy though!

I still think you should practice every day even for 15 minutes.  Just get to your job early enough.  (-: