SURVEY, PLEASE ~ LOOKING FOR INPUT HERE

[Premier Reporting]

I took a 3-day hearing - first day was opening statements, about six hours of colloquy - do YOU put it in colloquy margins or not? I am taking a survey and wanted to know what YOU do.
Thanks!
:)

[Phil Stillerman]

Absolutely, colloquy.

[Premier Reporting]

thought so...attys want me to adjust my bill - what a surprise!

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

If it's an arbitration, you're charging higher pages rates & attendance. And for a whole day of colloquy, I'd add $1/page or maybe $2/page to that higher arbitration rate.

A good analogy: not all paint jobs cost the same. You get the same (hopefully great) result (transcript) but the room with messed-up walls needs a lot of work and extra coats of primer and paint and consequently will cost more than the same size room with walls in decent shape.

A day of colloquy falls into this category in my opinion!

[Premier Reporting]

great analogy - attys are complaining and want me to reduce my bill - after three full days of hearing they asked for rough asciis - via email on the 4th day and wanted all three days then - WHAT????
got it to them in two days, expedited it to boot and now they're giving me b#@@$*^t about my bill and trying this that and the other to express why my bill is "outrageous."
ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[Janet]

Yes, I'd put it all as colloquy.

[Premier Reporting]

thought so. Glad all my peeps are with me on this - thought I was losing my mind.
Attys think I should've given them FULL PAGES of text when it was colloquy. I swear, some days I just wish I had a gun...lol

[Phil Stillerman]

If they can prove to you that they have adjusted their fees, then you can adjust yours.

[Janiece Young]

My firm charges a higher rate for arbitrations as well.
If it was colloquy, it was colloquy. You deserve to be paid for what you do. I think hearings are much harder than depositions, especially the index pages.
Stand your ground!!!
Janiece

[kathy - iamwrdsmth]

i'm a little confused about what you are asking here.

if it was colloquy, why would you put it in any other format?

and why would the attys expect you to adjust your page rate?
was this extremely easy material? did they request a summary
instead of verbatim transcript?

I agree with everyone here and especially Janiece,
stand your ground!!
kathy

[Kellie Zollars]

Yes, of course it should be in colloquy. I freelance and all of the firms I work for charge higher page rates and add per diems for hearings. Love the painting the room analogy. I'll have to share that one with other reporters.
Good luck.
Kellie

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Attys want you to adjust the bill? I'd advise giving them everything they want. Adjust the margins AND adjust the bill. Upward. To reflect the new margins.

The firm I worked for for many long years was originally owned by a great guy, C. Overton Lee. It was C. Overton Lee Shorthand Reporters when I joined in about 1977. And Mr. Lee ... getting ready to retire when he hired on the new whippersnapper reporter ... agreed with this, which is what we learned in reporting school. Colloquy when the witness was NOT on the stand is margin to margin. Colloquy when the witness IS testifying is indented. The reasoning was it was easier to find objections when the margins were shorter (back before word searches on eTrans were possible). So for many, many, many years, I indented colloquy only during testimony. Otherwise, it was margin to margin. Only after I got out into the big, wide world of true freelancing, with many firms and all their different practices, did I realize that there are a whole lot of different ways to do things. One of those things is higher page rates for hearings, which we NEVER did with C. Overton Lee. The page was the page was the page.

M.A.