Going overseas - What should I charge?

[Kyung]

If you take jobs overseas, what's the going rate?

Should I charge a per diem?
Should I charge for expenses?

What do you guys do?

UPDATE

So the agency calls me up to tell me a little bit more about the depo. I find out that I'm the only reporter interested. At this point, the thoughts that go through my head, hey, how come no one else wants to do it? Am I missing something? Is there something wrong with the job?

Oh, well, I just think it would be interesting to be able to travel and take some depositions. I've always wanted to travel.

[Tom Frasik, RPR, CSR 6961 (CA)]

kyung -

if you're going on behalf of yourself or on behalf of a firm, there will be a difference.
your page rates will most likely stay the same, with the exception of an expedite of course. if you're working on behalf of a firm, i would suggest that you're entitled to rates similar to what follow:
you should charge a per diem - i've charged $250 per day including travel days as well, (i.e. SF to Europe at $250 per day each travel day = $500 for 2 full days.) when i'm on the ground wherever i'm working, i charge $150 per day per diem and i have that understanding with the firm i work for. in addition, all your costs should be either passed along to the attorneys you're working for or you should have an understanding up front that they must reimburse you for all expenses in your billing.

as for the actual travel, few attorneys do international travel on the cheap - they usually fly business class. so, since you need to be on top of your game when you arrive, why shouldn't you fly business class too? and, naturally, they should pay for your airfare.

tom

[Tom Frasik, RPR, CSR 6961 (CA)]

also, kyung, consider that you'll likely get fewer pages of transcript b/c the depo may take place through an interpreter(s). in japan, they double-team the interpreters and it becomes VERY slowed down. so you may want to build in a minimum transcript fee per day, i.e. a guarantee of $1000 for instance - and on up, of course.

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Ditto (and tritto by now) everything that Tom said.

M.A.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Kyung,

Last year I was offered a 1-day dep in Mexico. Part of the deal was 2 travel days billed at $50/hour, with the clock ticking from the time you leave your house or hotel to arrive at either home or hotel. To give up 2 days of work for travel and get just $500 for both days I think is a very bad deal and severely erodes whatever you make on the actual dep. I'd have to be guaranteed maybe $3,000/day for the dep to accept $250 for each travel day. In that hypothetical, you make $3500 for 3 days = $1,166 per day. Nothing to sneeze at but it's far from a creampuff job.

Marge

[Andrea M. Ignacio]

Kyung,

I'm actually traveling abroad in the next few weeks to Taiwan. From what I know or charge the firms and have gotten paid for, it's a minimum of $800 a day for travel time. Don't accept anything less than $500 a day for traveling. Attorneys pay for the flight as well as the lodging. Any down days, it's $800 a day. It's true that most of the overseas work in the Orient will be interpreted so that you will get fewer pages. If so, the miminum trx fee is $1,000 per day and if the page rate, per diem, etc... (i.e. realtime, rough ascii) adds up to more than $1,000, then it's even that much better for you. Hope that helps.

Andrea M. Ignacio Howard, CSR, RPR, CLR
CSR No. 9830

[Kyung]

What kind of cords and things are you taking? Do I need to get a special kind of power strip or an plug adapter? I don't know what the volt ratings are in Taipei.

[Andrea M. Ignacio]

Targus has a good product for conversion of plugs. They say you don't, but it's always better to have it than not to, and all parts of Asia are different across the board. Take a few. One for your machine and then writer. I don't know where you're going, but you might want to google the area and find out exactly what amperage they use and whether you need just the adapter or the voltage converter. There's a difference between the two.

[Linda Cardoza]

Can you elaborate a little more on specifically what is needed when you travel and work abroad as to what specifically you might need in the way of electrical conversion plugs, power strips, and anything else that you might think of that you ended up needing. Thanks

[DivaCRStudent]

How often are reporters requested for overseas reporting? What kind of depositions are they? Are they usually at the US Embassy? My inquiring mind wants to know.

Tricia

[Kyung]

I personally don't know. I've had two almost misses in the last year. This is the third one that has been mentioned to me, and the first one to get to this stage.

The thing is it's very expensive to do these things. They're flying in reporter, videographer, interpreter and putting them all up at hotels. But I hear that bec. of the time difference, it's really expensive to do videoconferencing as well.

The easiest is to fly the deponent over here. So we'll see.

[Patricia Babits]

Merrill Legal is hiring a CA realtime reporter for Hong Kong. It's not just a few depos though, it's relocating.

[Michelle]

Depositions are not part of the legal systems here in Europe and the only deposition work we do is that coming from American attorneys, however I know that some reporters here charge a minimum rate of €500 per day and also travel day rate of €200 per day.