CASSY: Flexibility and challenge

Name: Cassy Russell

Age: 36

Occupation: Freelance court reporter

Number of Years in the Profession: 16

Background
Cassy graduated from a community college with a court reporting certificate in 1990. She has worked mostly as a freelance court reporter since then, with a few “breaks” to do things like serve as an international consultant on best practices in the courtroom. She has also taught court reporting at two schools in Oklahoma.

Getting interested in the profession
Cassy got into the profession by word of mouth — literally. She liked typing in high school, but wasn’t sure how she might translate that into a professional career. Meanwhile, her mother worked for a dentist who had a court reporter as a patient. Dental chair chat led to dinner-table conversations between Cassy and her mom, and Cassy saw an opportunity to parlay something she enjoyed doing into a skill that could yield rewards for a lifetime.

A “typical” day
“A typical day, good question!” Cassy quips. As a freelance court reporter, at any given point on any given day she may be: attending a deposition; checking e-mails; scheduling depositions; proofreading and/or “scoping” a job; researching correct spellings and/or punctuation; delivering transcripts; doing accounts payable/receivable; assigning jobs to other reporters; or troubleshooting technical problems, to name just a few of her “routine” tasks.

Best part of the job
Cassy enjoys the opportunities for travel and the freedom of being liberated from a desk all day. But she really enjoys the intellectual challenges as well — particularly working with the English language and punctuation, and the process of shaping a rough draft into a verbatim transcript that will serve as the permanent record of how people describe their thoughts, feelings and actions. “I’ve met great people and made many terrific friends in this profession. Who else could you sit around with and discuss using a comma versus a semicolon?”

Most rewarding professional experience
Cassy’s most rewarding professional experience was the most interesting for her as well. In 1994, she worked for three months helping to modernize the Supreme Court for the Port of Spain, Trinidad. She was part of a team integrating stenograph machines — and the people to use them — into the courts. “The murder trial I was involved with was very slow and tedious,” Cassy recalls. “At that time, the judge I worked with wrote everything down by hand and made the record. If someone needed a portion of the transcript repeated, he would have to stop the trial and read it back himself.”

Main skills used on the job
“Punctuation, typing, and writing error-free from the get-go.”

Advice for people considering entering the profession.
“School is the hardest part. Be prepared to practice, practice, practice. But reporting is so fun and rewarding, that in the end every minute is worth it.”