Image 01
  • Home
  • Services
    • Legal Videographer | Video Depositions
    • National Certified Court Reporters
    • Wisconsin Court Reporters
    • Deposition Reporting
    • Certified Court Reporters
    • Conference Rooms
    • Videography
    • Video Conferencing
    • Case Management
    • – Case Management Tools
    • Nationwide Coverage
  • About
    • Principals
    • Helpful Info
    • Our Team
  • Schedule
  • Blog
  • Contact
Toll Free 800.456.9531
Blog

Your Wisconsin Deposition Headquarters

Subscribe

For monthly updates on court reporting news, sign up for our free newsletter!

 Subscribe in a reader

  • Office Hours: M-F, 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
    Phone: 414-224-9533

    After Hours

    414.581.1597
    414.704.5993
  • Archives

    • June 2015
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011

Archive for the ‘Professionalism’ Category

Health Advisory For Court Reporters

Thursday, June 11th, 2015
court reporter

Brown & Jones’ Court Reporter Rachel Gwidt edits her transcript using a standing work station.

As a profession, court reporting has been very good to me.  I love being co-owner of Brown & Jones Reporting, hiring and mentoring reporters, and networking with new clients. I have the best work family imaginable.  I’m also lucky that I can still find time to take jobs as a reporter.  I enjoy the challenge of taking down every word, and hearing and learning new things on a daily basis.  Like many professions, however, there’s one major drawback to reporting: it’s a sedentary job.  We sit, often hours on end, in courtrooms and depositions, and then again as we edit the transcripts. To make matters worse, we spend our leisure time in front of the computer or television, checking emails, paying bills, or catching up on the latest episode of our favorite show. The toll sitting takes on our overall health is a hot topic in the media.  Amby Burfoot recently addressed the issue in Runner’s World Magazine, and offered tips to help combat the negative effects of a sedentary job:

We live in an obesigenic culture, where sedentary lifestyles, advertising, and food availability conspire to make us gain weight.  As a result, more than two thirds of American adults are overweight, leading to obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Unfortunately, experts say dieting alone isn’t the answer- we can consume calories far more quickly than we can burn them through exercise.

So, the article goes on to say, “exercise doesn’t work.  Diets don’t work.  What does?”  The answer may be “energy flux,” where the secret is simply to move– not for a specified amount of time or intensity- just move more.

In the 1950s, Harvard nutrition professor Jean Mayer, Ph.D., studied the diet, exercise, and weight of a group of working men.  Workers were divided into five groups according to physical demands of their jobs: sedentary (1), light work (2), up to very heavy work (5). Surprisingly, groups 2 through 5 weighed roughly the same; these men achieved a natural balance between their calories consumed and calories burned, independent of their diets.

The sedentary workers in Group 1 found no such balance.  They ate more than they needed and put on more weight than the others.  The study concluded that humans have evolved to exercise a certain amount every day.  When we do, our energy flux remains in balance, but without daily exercise, the weight-control system malfunctions.

This article is not meant to depress you, rather it’s is a wake-up call. The court reporter workday is a sedentary one, and we each must make an active effort to compensate for this each day.  As far as diets go, the best diet is the one you’re most likely to stick with.  The same goes for exercise: Do whatever keeps you motivated and excited, whether it’s yoga, bootcamp, strength training, swimming, 5-Ks, or walking your dog.  If you get tired of one exercise, do another.  Just don’t stop – ever.  As Joseph S. Alpert, M.D., editor in chief of the American Journal of Medicine says, “You only have to exercise on the days that you eat.”

Move more at work.  Take the stairs, stand, stretch, schedule walking meetings.  Take advantage of every break.  “Sitting is the new smoking, and we all need to cut back”, Burfoot says.  Exercise does much more than burn calories.  It improves blood sugar, heart health, blood pressure, and mood. Remember these four words relating to diet, health, weight, and exercise:  “Food.  Feet.  Water.  Repeat.”

Jane M. Jones, RMR, CRR
Brown & Jones Reporting, Inc.
Wisconsin Court Reporters 

Tags: Court Reporters' Health
Posted in Court Reporting, Court Reporting News, Professionalism | No Comments » | Add Comments

Realtime Reporting Done By A Newbie

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Realtime Reporter – Conquering Your Fears

Professional Court Reporter

Rachel Gwidt, RPR

 This past weekend I attended the Wisconsin Court Reporter convention in Sheboygan.  One of the sessions was about doing real time.  There were three official reporters that spoke about their experiences with real time and “just doing it.”  They mentioned things like their first experiences with it and how they felt and such.  They also pointed out that you don’t have to be perfect and that judges and attorneys really want it.  Now, these ladies all had their certifications and years of experience under their belts, so for them to say that they weren’t perfect, well, it certainly made me think…
I was at a depo today, and the witness was an older gentleman.  Almost every time the questioning attorney asked him a question, he would say something like “I can’t hear you.”  The witness quickly started blaming his inability to hear on an “extreme sinus condition.”  Then the witness started blaming the attorney for having a very powerful voice that was causing an echo in the room, causing the witness to not be able to understand him.  To accommodate the witness, we uprooted and moved to a smaller conference room.  We started back up again and instantly ran into the same problem.  Needless to say, by this time the questioning attorney was very frustrated.  
 
The suggestion was made by defense counsel to reschedule the deposition for another time after the witness had seen his doctor, and that maybe we could attempt it again after his “extreme sinus condition” had subsided.  I immediately said to myself, “Oh, no!  Now I’m not going to get any pages today.”  I asked to go off the record, and then I said something that I still can’t believe came out of my mouth.  I said, “I have an idea.  Why don’t I scoot over and have the witness and his attorney sit next to me so that they can see my screen? That way it doesn’t matter if the witness can’t hear your question because he can just read it.”  So that’s what we did. The deposition proceeded right along, and we got it done.  
 
To my pleasant surprise, I didn’t freeze up and write badly.  I wrote exactly the same as I would have written with nobody being able to see it.  Actually, I feel like I focused harder than if no one was watching.  Everyone was able to read it just fine.  Did I have some things in my favor?  Absolutely.  It wasn’t super fast and technical (just a nice, short, easy car accident-type case).  I thought to myself, what a stroke of luck to be able to have my first real time experience be so easy and stress free.  Do I feel this automatically qualifies me to take a real time patent case with 12 attorneys hooked up to me tomorrow?  Absolutely not, but what I got from the experience was huge to me.  It was validation of my writing skills and confirmation that I CAN do it.  Most of all, I came away with a new confidence in myself that I didn’t have yesterday (or all the days before that for that matter).  Those of you that know me fairly well know what I’m talking about! 
smiley face

Smile

 
My boss suggested that a next good step would be to write real time for an attorney that I feel comfortable with; you know, explain that I’m working on being a real time reporter and ask if I could set up an extra laptop.  I think that’s a really good idea and a comfortable way of moving forward.  Can you guess what my new favorite saying is? “JUST DO IT!” 
 
 
Rachel Gwidt, 
Registered Professional Court Reporter 

Tags: Court Reporting, court reporting technology, Realtime, realtime deposition, stenographer
Posted in All Posts, Court Reporting, Professionalism, Team, Technology | 8 Comments » | Add Comments

COURT REPORTERS – TIPS ON EMAIL ETIQUETTE

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Court Reporters – Professionalism

Why is Email Etiquette Important?

email symbol

Email Etiquette

Millions of people use email, and much of this correspondence involves business communication.  This blog pertains to business/professional email.  By that, I mean any email sent to your colleagues, clients or prospective employers.  The following are some helpful tips to consider when writing an email:

  • Do not use shorthand; i.e., “can u plz send info on careers?”
  • Avoid misspellings and poor grammar. 
  • When possible, be direct; however, don’t leave out important details.
  • Take a look at your email address.  Are you a sexymom@isp.com?  Use a more formal address.
  • Use your spell checker.
  • Do not use offensive language.
  • Avoid using hypertext markup language or HTML.  Not every email program can interpret this, and it will not translate well.
  • Avoid writing your message using all upper case letters.  It looks like you’re shouting.  Also, avoid using all lower case letters.  Some people will interpret this as mumbling.
  • Use your email program’s “Reply To All” feature only when your reply will be necessary to know for the original sender and all people in the original email’s To: and CC: field.
  • Do not use “Reply To All” when only the original sender needs to know your reply.
  • Use AntiVirus Software on your emails.  Keep it up to date.  Scan your emails.
  • Ask before you send huge attachments.
  • Avoid “me too” responses.  Not enough content, but enough to annoy people with a large amount of emails.
  • If your email is emotionally charged, walk away from the computer and wait to reply.
  • Always acknowledge emails.
  • Always end your emails with “thank you, best regards,” something.
  • Many people overuse exclamation points in email.  Try to use only one exclamation point in an email message.  Remember, exclamation points can be interpreted as anger or frustration.  The recipient cannot hear the tone of your voice.

Jane M. Jones, RMR, CRR
Brown & Jones / Deposition Reporting
 

Tags: Court Reporting, Deposition Reporting, Email Etiquette, Professionalism
Posted in All Posts, Court Reporting, Professionalism | 1 Comment » | Add Comments

 
  • Brown & Jones
    735 North Water Street
    Milwaukee, WI 53202
    Tel (414) 224-9533
    Toll-Free (800) 456-9531
    Fax (414) 224-9635
  • Home
  • Services
  • About
  • Schedule
  • Blog
  • Contact

  • © 2012 All Rights Reserved.