Court Reporter

A person who makes a word-for-word record of what is said in court and produces a transcript of the proceedings upon request.

A court reporter is a person trained to take down a verbatim account of all proceedings in the courtroom (but usually not in the judge's chambers unless a party requests it). Most court reporters today use special machines that enable them to get down every word. Later, they prepare typed transcripts for use by the parties and the judge on appeal. Court reporters also record and transcribe depositions.

Until recently, court reporters had to manually type out the transcript from their shorthand notes. Now, however, many reporters have machines that read the recording machine tape and create a text file that can be printed out on a standard computer printer.