AI Court Reporting + the Future of Legal Transcription

AI for Court Reporting

A court reporter is traditionally an onsite human stenographer. They’ve been onsite by necessity, because a court reporter does so much more than robotically taking down spoken words. A live courtroom can be an emotional place and nuance is important for a court note taker to, er, note. That said, the aforementioned shortage of court reporters has created an evolution in the job; namely, court reporting is now often done remotely or using recorded audio.

Here’s where AI in the courtroom can become increasingly common. As AI gets more advanced and can detect nuance in human speech, it’s more feasible and practical than ever before for AI transcription to work nearly the same way as remote stenographers do (if not more efficiently). Live human transcription of courtroom testimony can take days to turn around, whereas AI transcription can be completed in mere hours. All you need to do is upload your audio or video file and an Automated Speech Recognition service does the rest.

The drawback of AI court reporting, at least for now, is that AI isn’t foolproof. Legal transcription needs to be as accurate as possible, so attorneys using AI transcription should require a human legal proofreader to ensure utmost accuracy.

AI for Bulk Legal Transcription

AI legal transcription can be useful wherever a stenographer isn’t required or available. Simply put, there are reams of legal transcriptions needed every day. Hearings, depositions, and even interrogations can take place over hours, if not days.

Human transcription of these legal events can take as long if not longer than the event itself. In some cases, a lawyer will do their own transcription, but that’s inefficient at best. Using a legal transcriptionist is ideal but not always possible, and saps an already dwindling resource.

AI legal transcription can generate drafts of everything from depositions to voice memos almost immediately, freeing up a human legal transcriptionist to work elsewhere. Learn more about stenographers vs. transcriptionists on our blog.

AI for Legal Translation

For legal firms with global clientele or bilingual clients, translation is an important but time-consuming task. Accuracy in translation is as important — if not more so — than legal transcription because of the nuance and differences between languages.

Language barriers, differences in laws and regulations from country to country, and just the huge amount of one-to-one language translations that are possible make legal translation a job that can require vast resources. There’s not always someone available who can translate into, say, Portuguese.

AI can make translation hurdles in the legal world a thing of the past. It’s important to note that for liability issues a human expert should always oversee any AI-generated translation of legal documents, but “overseeing” and “generating from scratch” are vastly different time commitments.

Differences in Legal Roles

“Court reporter” is a term that encompasses several different jobs. The traditional idea of a court reporter is the person who sits in a courtroom near the judge, feverishly typing away over a steno or court transcription machine as the paper ribbon pools at their feet. Today, court reporting is just a little more digital than the old-school version because most court reporters use a digital steno machine.

In reality, it’s a stenographer whose specific job is to take live testimony and turn it into text, usually using a brand of shorthand. A court reporter often has more extensive duties, sometimes swearing in witnesses before depositions. They might be required to have a more in-depth knowledge of the legal system than a stenographer, who captured spoken words verbatim.

A stenographer also controls the courtroom to ensure there’s an accurate, understandable preservation of the legal record. They’ll minimize crosstalk, address real-time issues with the recording, ensure that everything is clear and understandable, and request that people repeat themselves as needed.

Lastly, a digital court reporter uses special equipment to capture multiple channels during the testimony. They create audio files while also transcribing the spoken words.

Will AI Replace Stenography?

AI will not replace stenography and/or human court reporters. The human element is incredibly important to legal proceedings, and stenography is no different. A human stenographer’s job is to capture spoken testimony verbatim, but it’s also to interpret certain parts of speech that AI simply cannot fully understand, although AI speech recognition for court reporting is getting better all the time. Sounds, tics, technical terms, and intent are all important parts of human speech, and it takes a human to interpret those correctly.

What AI can do for stenography is to enhance the stenographer’s ability to focus on those human elements. With an AI backup, a human is free to focus on things other than raw transcription, which in turn enhances the overall quality of the transcription.

Will AI Take the Place of Court Reporters?

AI will not take the place of court reporters. Much like with stenographers, AI will likely serve to enhance a court reporter’s abilities to do their job. It already has, in some ways.

Once upon a time, a court reporter had to be onsite at all times. Thanks to digital advancements, that job can often be accomplished remotely, and many court reporters use AI for a “first draft” transcription that they proofread, clean up, and approve.

The bigger issue isn’t that AI might replace court reporters. It’s that court reporters aren’t replacing themselves. According to the National Court Reporters Association, the average court reporter is 55 years old. Court reporters are rapidly approaching retirement age and younger professionals are not filling the gaps. The industry might need AI more than we think.