Court Reporting: Finally Living the Dream…

With over 20 years living as a soldier, ten years’ experience as a military court reporter, and 10 years of supervisory experience running Army legal offices, I am at the apex of living out my dream.  The days of tough Army physical training, digging foxholes, cleaning latrines, weapons training, field exercises, and dangerous deployments in defense of our great nation are behind me now.  I cannot say that I miss the sheer drudgery or danger of those days, although I certainly miss the great fellow Americans I met along the way.

Thanks to the post-9/11 GI Bill, now I am enjoying perfecting my trade and craft specialty acquired after joining the Army, court reporting.  My name is Emanuel Mines and I am a retired Army master sergeant (E8) and currently a student at Brown College of Court Reporting (BCCR). 

After graduating high school and attending two years of college, I joined the Army in 1993.  In 1997, I attended the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island, where I received formal training to be a certified military court reporter on an analog recorder system.  As time and technology progressed, the Army migrated to voice recognition technology, which is now commonly known as voice writing.  In the military, I gained not only the valuable education and training just mentioned but also valuable experiences as well.  I had the pleasure and challenge of recording/transcribing nearly 500 court cases ranging anywhere from bad checks to sex crimes to murder.   Although court reporting was my military occupation specialty, by virtue of being in the military, I also had military leadership responsibilities and obligations such as mentoring junior soldiers, supervising live-fire ranges, and preparing my soldiers for and leading them in combat.  These military responsibilities gave me valuable leadership skills in addition to my court reporting skills.   

The primary focus of my military court reporting training was to hone and polish my skills and style through repetition with the equipment, as well as obtaining critical assistance and development from more seasoned and experienced senior court reporters.  Although I obtained tremendous experience as a military court reporter, I did not obtain certifications or degrees recognized by the private civilian sector.  As I transitioned from the military, I recognized the need, through networking, to obtain these important certifications and degrees.   

That recognition is what has brought me to Brown College of Court Reporting.  Through my exposure of being a court reporter in the military and working at an arbitration and mediation firm immediately after retirement, I met many civilian court reporters who graduated from BCCR.   After learning that, I began researching the school for myself and learned that BCCR has an outstanding reputation and is a very reputable court reporting school. 

As a student at BCCR, I am able to combine my experience and learning from the military and spend more time on refining the techniques and skills required to perfect my craft as a court reporter.   At BCCR, I am reinforcing what I learned in the Army, and I am able to focus and strengthen the various important techniques:  proper breathing, enunciating and pronouncing each word, volume control, maintaining a proper posture, and most importantly, grammar/punctuation.  Although I have been at BCCR for only six months, using these techniques has immensely improved my speed and accuracy. 

From my vantage point of many years in the business, I feel that it takes a certain type of person to become a court reporter.  It takes a great deal of discipline and maturity.   I learned very quickly that there are such things as sleepless nights, working lunches, and duty weekends/holidays.  In order to meet deadlines and produce transcripts or assemble records of trial accurately, effectively, efficiently, and promptly, time management was a must.  The military uses what is known as the “Backwards Planning Process” for every mission.  With this method, you calculate how much time you estimate it will take you to complete a mission, but by calculating from the endpoint first.  Relating this to court reporting, one would estimate from the time he must have the transcript prepared, to how long it will take to scope/edit the transcript, to the time it will take to transcribe, and so on.  I will hold this process near and dear to my heart as I pursue my career as a civilian reporter.

It is a refreshing feeling when you can work in an industry that you are truly passionate about.  When I retired from the military, it only made sense for me to pursue the one thing I honestly enjoyed the most.  I always felt proud to be an American soldier in uniform.  I also always reflected that I feel at home and most comfortable in the courtroom when recording and transcribing.  Now I feel as though I am fortunate to be experiencing the best of both worlds.  I worked in the field for many years as a soldier, and now I am getting quality training and earning civilian credentials from a great school as a civilian.  I truly am living out my dream.

By Emanuel Mines, a student at Brown College of Court Reporting.

More information on Brown College of Court Reporting can be found at www.bccr.edu or by calling (800)849-0703.