Third Day in Federal Court and the fun begins

[Kyung]

Well, Monday was my third time in federal court. Different judge.

Unbeknowst to me (or I didn't find out until after I said, yes, I'd cover) the Mattel v. MGA case was being tried in this courtroom. Daily copy!!! Yikes!!!

Well, I know nothing about producing a federal court transcript. Talk about baptism by fire.

It was a really hard day in court for me. On top of "regular" civil calendar and criminal matters, they were going over verdict forms and jury instructions. Imagine attorneys that you have never met before getting up and going on and on about putting "in the" between this word and that word. Oh, joy.

To top it off, this case has been ongoing for months. There is a ton of terms and people that I did not know the spelling of.

Thankfully, I had a great scopist help me out. I had a lot of support from my fellow federal reporters and some help from another court reporter forum that I am on.

Anyway, the regular reporter in the courtroom has a direct Internet connection so I was able to e-mail my transcript from the morning session to my scopist at the break. By the time I got home, there were pages for me to work on.. Yay, not.

Unfortunately for me, I also had a 9 a.m. depo scheduled the next morning. Note to self, do not schedule yourself for any depos the day after sitting out in court. So all-day depo. Get home, finish transcript and e-mail.

I am now sitting here printing out 169 pages. Must get faster printer. C'est la vie.

On the positive side, I can sit here and right long-ass blogs while I wait for my transcript to print out. I just want it off my desk.

Welll, that's my experience. The actual experience was quite painful honestly, not only bec. of the tennis elbow situation, but also bec. I don't have a clue. But producing the transcript itself is not that big a deal. It helps that everything is in all caps. Yay for all caps.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I survived. Will I go back? I don't know yet. I'm not sure there will be a fourth day. I don't really enjoy the whole daily thing.

Oh, yeah, the reporter who officially has that courtoom also uses the Stenocast to provide realtime for the attorneys. It worked fabulous. I just attached it to my serial port and delivered realtime to the attorneys all day long. Probably more than they wanted bec there were other calendar matters going and they never unplugged their computer all day and I didn't unplu mine either.

Update: Just got my first check. Whoo-hoo. Almost worth pain. I might go back.

[Anthony D. Frisolone]

Kyung, I totally feel your pain. Sounds like my first few weeks in federal court. Hang in there!!