By Suzanne I. Trimble

Research on the internet can uncover a treasure trove of information that can save you time, which is money, and make your transcripts fantastically accurate. I’ve put together a few tips, many free of charge, that may be a refresher to some and a time saver to others to make research time more productive. Nothing is more frustrating to me than doing two hours of research on a 30-page transcript and still being unable to find that one spelling I’ve been looking for.

• Google Scholar. Google Scholar can be particularly useful if you do any in-court reporting. Use Google Scholar when looking for case law, citations, quotes from a case, spellings of judges or attorneys, etc.
  • TIP: To narrow to the proper jurisdiction on the Google Scholar home page, select “Case law” underneath the Google Scholar search bar. Then underneath that select “Select courts.” This will bring you to a page to narrow the search to the proper jurisdiction. You can select any state or federal court on this page, so you are not searching through all the cases in America for the proverbial needle in a haystack. For example, if you’re looking for a case in Florida Federal Court, 11^th Circuit, Middle District, scroll down on this page, look under the “Federal courts” column for “11^th Circuit,” and check the box to the left of “MD Florida,” then on the bottom of the screen or top, click “Done,” which will take you to a Google Scholar search screen for the narrow search of that jurisdiction.
  • TIP: If you know the year or a range of years of the particular item you’re searching for, once you’ve typed in what you’re searching for on the search bar and hit enter or click on the search button, in the left column on the search results page, choose any of the “Since” options, or you can create a “Custom range.” Underneath that, if you select “Sort by relevance,” it will bring up the top searches by relevance. If you select “sort by date” it will bring up the newest case by date first.
  • TIP: All the Google search tips below work in Google Scholar.
• Google search tips to customize searches
  • Use quotation marks for exact phrases. If you search for Dog Sweaters, the search engine will search for content that contains those two words in any order. However, if you search “Dog Sweaters,” it will search for that phrase exactly as you typed it. This can help locate specific information. (I love this tip for Google Scholar!)
  • Narrow the search. If you are searching for a word with an ambiguous meaning, for example caterpillar. If you’re searching for the insect caterpillar, references to the company Caterpillar, Inc., will also be returned. Use Caterpillar -Inc to exclude references to the company.
  • Fill in the blank. If you only know certain words in the phrase, place an asterisk in place of the words you don’t know. For example, Speedy trial * tolled. Google search will search for that phrase knowing that the asterisks can be any word or words.
  • Synonyms. To search for a word and its synonyms, type ~ and your word, no space – for example, ~phone will get results with phone and other closely related words
  • Glossaries. If you type the subject and then the word glossary on the search bar, such as FAA glossary, several glossaries can pop up — depending on the subject matter, of course. These are so helpful and can put meaning and context to a search of terms in uncharted territory.
• LinkedIn. When looking for the spelling of someone’s name and you know the company they work for, LinkedIn is an awesome research tool.
  • TIP: In the search tool bar, type in the company you are looking for, for example Microsoft, then choose “Microsoft people” on the drop-down menu to find the employees that are on LinkedIn.
  • TIP: Looking for the name of a company? Type in the employee name in the search bar and the company will be linked to the employee in the drop-down menu.
• Online court files. Many jurisdictions now have entire court files online with no cost to peruse the documents. This is a great source to find names, case citations, etc. Many of the documents in the court file will be searchable PDFs. I use this daily to research the cases I report. My realtime looks particularly fantastic when I know what’s going to be coming at me. Simply search for the county clerk’s office of the jurisdiction you are looking for. For example, a search for “Orange County Clerk” brings up “My Orange Clerk Home”; click on that and then scroll down to the “Court Record Search” link to access the online files. Some jurisdictions do still charge a fee to look at the documents in the electronic court file so this may not always be an option if you don’t want to pay a fee.
• Phrontistery. The Phrontistery is an online dictionary for searching for spellings of obscure, weird, and unusual words in the English language. This is a great site to check out and explore.
• Google Sheets. Don’t do research again on the same type of case you’ve done research on before looking for the same terms and benefit from colleagues working on the same or similar type of case. How? A few years ago, the court reporters in the courthouse I work in started creating Google Sheets for terms/names in specific cases, types of cases, agents, and officers. We share these Google Sheets with each other and sometimes scopists and proofreaders. This way each of us are contributing terms/names we’ve searched for as well as benefitting from the research that others do, and Google Sheets update realtime in the cloud as each person edits. For example, it is sometimes very difficult to find the spellings of the names of agents and officers, so we’ve created a page with the verified spellings of many of these names, or for a particular case more than one reporter is working on, we share a created case Google Sheet and each contribute to it.
  • Create a Google Sheet. To create a Google Sheet from the Gmail page, in the upper right-hand corner click the icon that looks like a square bunch of dots. Scroll down to “Sheets.” Click “Blank.”
  • Add others to Google Sheet. To add others to the Google Sheet, in the upper right-hand corner click “Share.” It will prompt you to name the sheet before sharing, and then you can either add the name of someone in your contacts or add the email of the person you want to add. This will send an email to the individual inviting them to the Google Sheet you’ve created, and then they are able to join you in editing the Google Sheet.
  • Google Sheets is also available via apps on other devices such as a smartphone; just go to your app store to download. The benefit to being able to access Google Sheets on another device is if you are in a situation where internet is not accessible on your laptop, your smartphone may be able to pull it up.

Suzanne I. Trimble, RPR, CRR, is an official court reporter based in Sanford, Fla., and a member of NCRA’s Technology Committee. If you have a question for the Tech Committee, please send it to jcrfeedback@ncra.org.

By Teresa Russ

If you were around in 1984, you probably remember a song entitled, Somebody’s Watching You by Rockwell featuring Michael Jackson. Back then I felt that song to be a little creepy even though it was fun to dance to.

The answer is yes, according to Norton, the antivirus software company, and an article published by USA Today, Feb. 15, 2020. In Nine Simple Webcam Security Tips to Deter Hackers, written by Kyle Chivers, a NortonLifeLock employee, Norton offered the following suggestions:

1. Keep your software up to date. I know that it might seem like a nuisance, but it’s important because this helps patch vulnerabilities in your software.
2. Use a firewall to lock down your network.
3. Secure your WiFi, and do not use easy passwords. It’s a good idea to enable WiFi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) as an added layer of protection.
4. Avoid all suspicious links.
5. Don’t chat with strangers online. Remember when you were little and your mother told you not to talk to strangers? That applies to online activities as well.
6. Cover or unplug your webcam. If your indicator light is on and you did not turn it on, there is a chance your webcam has been hacked. Hackers can sometimes disable the light, still allowing them to spy on you. Webcam covers can be purchased on Amazon from $2 to $9, depending on the type you choose. You can decide which is best for you by going to https://spy.com/articles/gadgets/video-media/best-webcam-covers-238966/.

Cimkiz covers

BLOCKED (A total of 57 reusable webcam stickers)

Dcreate

Animal Camera Dots

SpiShutter Slim

Funsylab Pacman

Bungajungle Wood

C-Slide (Pack of 6)

Eye Webcam Cover Slider

Anti-Spy

Imluckies

12. Get a virtual private network (VPN)

13. Use trusted tech support

14. Install and run security software on your devices

If the camera covers are too much, you can always go low-tech and, on your next trip to the Dollar Tree or 99 Cents Only Store, pick up some tape. Yes, that same USA Today article noted that both former FBI Director James Comey and Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg use tape to cover their webcams.

 Teresa Russ, CRI, is a freelance CART captioner and court reporter based in Bellflower, Calif., and a member of NCRA’s Technology Committee.

If you have a question for the Technology Committee, please send it to jcrfeedback@ncra.org.

(As an Amazon Associate, NCRA earns from qualifying purchases.)

By Lynette Mueller

Your NCRA Board of Directors and Technology Committee were hard at work at the beginning of this 2020 COVID-19 pandemic by creating and presenting webinars and content for our members regarding remote depositions and best practices. Speaking as a member of the Tech Committee, we felt strongly that information, resources, and tools needed to be dispensed quickly to the membership to get court reporters up to speed with our changing environment and our “new normal.”

Here’s a list of some of the articles written about remote depositions that are still relevant today:

Streamtext and Zoom

Basic Zoom Tips, Tricks and Advice

Five tips for looking great in remote depositions

How to optimize internet connections for remote depositions

Handling of exhibits for remote depositions

What states allow remote and/or online notarization?

Conducting meetings and depositions by remote means

Office setups and remote preparation part of downtime

Ask the Techie: Do you need a new chair?

COVID-19: Looking back through the lens

Learning is knowledge, and knowledge is power! To that end, I use several different tools to keep abreast of changes in technology so that I may know how to troubleshoot different scenarios I’m faced with as I report each new Zoom proceeding.

1. Set up Google Alerts: This is such an easy thing to do! Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results that match the user’s search term. Start your first Google Alert now. (Find instructions here.)
2. Follow industry leader blogs: There’s so much great content put out by some great court reporters! Do a Google search to find the reporting blogs of your choice and sign up to receive new content sent directly to your inbox. In the alternative, you can use a handy app I recommend called Feedly to have all the information in one central location. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others. There’s an iOS, Android, and web-based application. Learn more about Feedly now.
3. Sign up for Facebook and Twitter: Yes, social media, believe it or not, is a great resource to gain valuable information and knowledge to keep up on best practices for Zoom proceedings. As for Twitter, again, follow the industry leaders to gain their insights. With Facebook, some people may have a love/hate relationship. If you choose to use it for business and court reporting knowledge, some of the Facebook groups can be so helpful! My top Facebook groups that are welcoming, positive, and supportive are: Court Reporter Helpline, Court Reporters and Zoom learn and share, and Court Reporter Technology (NCRA). When you see a Facebook post that may be useful and you wish to read it later, use the save function. To save a post: Click in the top right of the post. Select Save Post, Save Event, Save Link, or Save Video. You may create your own category/folder of your choice. My folder is named Zooming! This is an easy way to go back later if you encounter a similar issue as a fellow colleague.
4. Finally, become a member of NCRA and take advantage of all the technology articles posted on TheJCR.com by the Tech Committee! You may add TheJCR.com to the Feedly app as well to find everything at a glance and at your fingertips. Remember that the JCR is a premier resource as well. I’ve been a continuous member of NCRA for many years and can’t imagine not having the support and resources the Association provides daily.

Next, let’s talk about seven lessons we’ve learned and/or tips for your next Zoom proceeding. While I haven’t personally experienced each of the following issues in Zoom, these questions and the answers are quite timely and may assist you with perfecting your remote deposition setup.

Scenario #1:

Q. When using a cellphone as primary output for Zoom because the laptop connection is not solid and the court reporter has external speakers, what should the court reporter do when reporting a long proceeding and the cellphone needs to be charging?

A. Use your cellphone cable and plug into your laptop or use a wireless charger.

Scenario #2:

Q. How does one mute a microphone using keyboard shortcuts?

A. Try following these instructions from bouncegeek.

Scenario #3:

Q. Does Zoom have a noise-cancellation feature?

A. Yes! This link through Zoom will provide information to get started.

Scenario #4:

Q. What can a court reporter do to prevent a situation when the power goes off and Zoom kicks you off the deposition?

A. Purchase a Battery Backup & Surge Protector for your router and your laptop. There are lots of great options available at an affordable price. Lifewire has a list of their nine best picks for 2020.

Scenario #5:

Q. What can a court reporter do to add an extra layer of security to prevent Zoom bombing?

A. When you are the host and all participants are admitted, announce that you are locking the Zoom meeting to prevent anyone else entering the meeting. Remember to lock the meeting! In the event a participant gets kicked out of the meeting, stop the proceedings, alert the attorneys, and unlock the meeting so that that person may be readmitted by you. Once that errant participant is readmitted to the meeting, lock it down again.

Here’s additional information from the Zoom Help Center: “The Security icon in the meeting controls allows the host or co-host of a meeting to enable or disable options during a meeting to secure the meeting and minimize disruption during the meeting. Most of the settings can be controlled from Account, Group, and User settings prior to the meeting. If applied at the Account, Group, or User level, these settings will be applied in meeting by default. The Security icon combines them all in one place for easy access during the meeting.”

When you’re in the meeting, click Participants at the bottom of your Zoom window. In the participants pop-up box, you will see a button that says Lock Meeting. Click on Lock Meeting, and you’re ready to go!

Scenario #6:

Q. May I use a dual-monitor setup during a Zoom deposition, so that the participants are on one screen and the exhibits are on the other screen?

A. Yes. The dual-monitor display feature allows the video layout and screen share content to be placed on two separate monitors/screens. Gallery or speaker view can be displayed on one monitor while the other monitor displays a content share. Click this link for specific instructions on dual-monitor setup for a Mac and a PC.

Scenario #7:

Q. How does one set up a “hybrid” deposition when a remote attorney client asks the court reporter (as the host) to ensure all counsel, the witness, and the court reporter have a device in the conference room and on camera so as not to encounter audio feedback and/or echoing?

A. This is my personal setup for the above “hybrid” deposition scenario.

* Create and email the Zoom invitation to all participants

* Arrive 45 minutes early to the deposition location to allow enough time to effectuate all steps to ensure no audio feedback during the proceedings.

* Set up Zoom laptop for the witness and log in as the host.

* Rename the Zoom box reflecting the witness name and add the word “witness” behind the proper name.

* Mute the witness’s Zoom laptop. Additionally, click the audio tab at the bottom of the Zoom window and select leave computer audio.

* Set up an iPad, iPhone, or other tablet device as the court reporter Zoom screen.

* Click on the Zoom link to join the meeting on the court reporter Zoom screen.

* Mute the court reporter device. Additionally, click the audio tab and select leave computer audio.

* Rename your court reporter window to reflect your name and then the word “Court Reporter” or “Stenographer” behind your name.

* Use a Polycom or speakerphone and dial in using one of the telephone  numbers provided in the Zoom invitation.

* Then, go to the witness zoom laptop where you initiated the meeting. Go to the participant box for the telephone number and rename it to something like Conference Room Audio. That way, all counsel know who is in the meeting.

* When other counsel arrive, instruct them to log into the Zoom meeting,  mute their device, click the audio tab, and select leave computer audio.

So, there you have seven lessons we’ve learned about Zoom depositions since the pandemic hit early this spring. Attorneys look to us sometimes to be their personal resource for these remote depositions — and that’s okay. This is our opportunity to shine and show the extra value we provide to them with our technological savviness! As the guardians of the record, we court reporters provide an extremely valuable service to the legal community not only with our stenographic skills but also by paving the way for our clients so that they can keep on fighting and working for their clients. The wheels of justice can keep turning because of how resilient court reporters are, rising to each challenge the legal community has faced, and searching and finding truly great solutions these past several months.

Look for another series of lessons learned coming soon. The Tech Committee is working hard and has so much more to share with you!

Lynette L. Mueller, FAPR, RDR, CRR, is a freelance court reporter based in Memphis, Tenn., and a member of NCRA’s Technology Committee.

If you have a question for the Technology Committee, please send it to jcrfeedback@ncra.org.

By Lynette Mueller

backup: a copy of computer data (as a file or the contents of a hard drive); also : the act or an instance of making a backup 

In today’s technologically savvy environment, there is no excuse not to have a great backup plan for transcripts and important data.  After all, those transcripts are our bread and butter; right? Court reporters should have a firm solution in place for the storage and protection of their data in order to retrieve it, if needed, at a moment’s notice and from wherever you may be located. Clients and litigants rely on us, as the guardians of the record, to preserve that important testimony.

Other reasons to ensure a great backup plan are:

1. Simple recovery. We are all human and make mistakes at times. Transcript files can be deleted accidentally or mistakenly. There’s no reason to fear this possibility if one has a multi-level backup plan in place — simply recover the file from a time before it was deleted.
2. Archival. Not all depositions or trials are transcribed immediately after the job. Sometimes requests for a transcript could be years down the road. Depending on the amount of time that has elapsed, you could easily assume you can go to your computer or laptop and retrieve a particular file. As with everything in life, events do not always stay the same. Perhaps a new laptop was purchased in the intervening time and is no longer a viable option for retrieval.
3. Downtime. Relying solely on your computer and/or laptop as your backup source could be a detriment to your business and livelihood. By simply having a multi-tier approach to the backup, you can be up and running within minutes rather than hours or days.
4. Doing work twice. One of the most important rules to doing work right is to do it correctly the first time. If one were to suffer a minor failure and lose a file without a backup, you may be able to recover some things and possibly not the entire file. Who wants to rewrite that job again?

Methods one can utilize for the backup of data:

• Printing
• USB flash drive
• External hard drive
• CD or DVD
• Network-attached storage: file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients.
• RAID: device used to manage hard disk drives in a storage array
• Cloud storage: a service model in which data is transmitted and stored on remote storage systems where it is maintained, managed, backed up, and made available to users over a network (typically the internet).

There are several perceived advantages and disadvantages to using a particular method of backup. Each court reporter must determine the particular backup approach and option that best fits and meets their specific needs.

Benefits of Cloud Storage:

1. Save costs. Moving to the cloud can reduce the need to purchase other external devices, the enclosures that contain them, the electricity that powers them, and the warranty services that protect them. There are many reputable cloud-based services that are free for limited storage plans.
2. Simplicity. Setup with the cloud is a breeze and only takes a few minutes to do.
3. Security. The larger cloud vendors have the know-how and resources to be able to protect data from threats.
4. Convenience. When utilizing the cloud, files from all devices can be configured to back up and you may access the information from any other device wherever you are located. Working remotely to get those transcripts out the door can be a breeze. Delivering your final transcripts to your important client is a snap when you’re away from the office.
5. Sharing and collaboration. It’s super easy to share your files when stored in the cloud with your proofreader and/or scopist. The transcript is backed up once, and then you can give access to your trusted colleagues.
6. Easy integration. Services like Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive connect with thousands of apps, allowing you to easily import or link to your files without actually clicking out of whatever you’re working on.

Drawbacks of Cloud Storage:

1. Backups may be slower. Internet bandwidth speeds may limit the time it takes for a full backup of large files.
2. Connectivity and higher internet usage. Depending on when you are choosing to run your backups, your internet activity performance may suffer. You don’t want to saturate your internet connection during times when access is needed for other critical business activity. Just like any other technology, cloud-based storage solutions are not perfect and can be affected by technical issues. Remember, accessing your data is contingent on having a reliable internet connection.

Benefits of External Devices:

1. Portability and speed. The physical portability of external devices is a given. You can plug in the device from one computer to another very easily and negates the effort to copy voluminous amounts of data over a network or the internet.
2. Easy replacement. Remember to have a great backup for your external drive as well.
3. Affordable. External devices are quite affordable and involve a one-time upfront cost.
4. Security. The only way the data on your drive can be tampered with is through physical access.

Drawbacks of External Devices:

1. Durability. External hard drives can break without warning. Remember to keep your drives backed up as well.
2. Loss. Because flash drives and other external devices are so portable, they also pose a risk of loss, theft, or accidental destruction.

Cloud-based storage has been around for many years and is certainly a reliable method to back up your important data. That being said, the best backup strategy is a multi-level approach. A “multi-level approach” means that one should use a combination of both the cloud and some kind of external hard drive or similar device.

I utilize multiple backup methods in my business:  my laptops, external hard drive, Drobo, Synology, Min-u-script, and CrashPlan.  My career has spanned 30 years, and I’ve purchased several new laptops during that time, so my backup storage plan has evolved.

Today my CAT software has automatic cloud backup for all of my files. It’s great because I know I have that extra layer of backup for when I am on vacation, for example, and get a call for a transcript that a client has either misplaced or forgot to order. My clients definitely come first, and I need to ensure I have access at all times — whether I’m on vacation or visiting family. My particular software has a great feature where the color of the checkmark near my folder file is green, giving me the satisfaction of knowing that that particular file is backed up to the cloud.

So I mentioned I also use CrashPlan as one of my backup layers. Recently that service restructured their pricing, and I then had to decide what to do about the increased pay structure. I felt it was pretty steep, and the service was going to limit how many devices could be backed up with an affordable plan. I loved the fact that all my computers were backed up there and didn’t want to go through the research of finding a different solution.

In doing my research, I found that I could use a handy little app called GoodSync. It’s a game-changer! I installed GoodSync on my CAT software app, which then backs up directly to my Synology. GoodSync is a backup and file synchronization program. It is used for synchronizing files between two directories, either on one computer or between a computer and another storage device or between a computer and a remote computer or server. Jobs can be automatically run according to any desired schedule. Synology is a server that is a networked device on your home network and it uses a technology called RAID, which writes data across multiple drives at the same time to ensure that, if and when a drive fails, one can remove that one failed drive, replace the failed drive with a new one with no loss of data. In other words, a networked file server. My Synology system is the device that is being backed up to CrashPlan; thus, avoiding the high fees of multiple computers on my CrashPlan fees.

Late this afternoon I received a request for a 2011 transcript that was not transcribed at the end of the job. My initial panicked reaction, upon reading the email, was: “Oh, my gosh! What computer is that file on?” Of course, that’s always every reporter’s worst nightmare — right? — not being able to locate an old file!

Once I took a breath, I knew I wouldn’t have a problem, because I had all my files backed up going back to 2003.  With confidence, I hit the Reply button to my client and advised him, “Why, yes, I can have that transcript to you.  When do you need it?”

While I may go a “bit” overboard with my backup options, I would recommend that every court reporter start by devising specific backup options that will work for you and be confident you will always locate those old files at a moment’s notice.

Your clients will thank you for it!

Lynette Mueller, FAPR, RDR, CRR, is a freelance court reporter based in Memphis, Tenn., and a member of NCRA’s Technology Committee. She can be reached at lynette@omegareporting.com.