5 legal careers for tech-savvy professionals

Legal support services are an integral part of litigation today. There are many careers in this space that are vital to the practice of law and can be a great opportunity for technology-savvy professionals looking to get into the legal industry. Here are a few of the hottest legal support careers that are often overlooked:

1. Digital Court Reporter

A fast-growing career in the legal field, digital court reporters use professional-quality recording equipment to capture the spoken record during depositions, examinations under oath, hearings, and trials. With specialized software, they are able to notate speaker changes, events, spellings, and times. Ultimately the recording is sent to a legal transcriptionist, and a certified legal transcript is created. Digital court reporters act as officers of the court keeping the record neutral, maintaining the exhibits, and swearing in the witnesses.

Those seeking to enter this career path can get training online, in a classroom, or on the job and may need to obtain certification from AAERT depending on the company and jurisdiction they work within. Generally, it only takes between 6 and 16 weeks to complete the training required, which is offered online through colleges and universities across the country. Once employed, digital court reporters can expect to make between $30,000 and $60,000 with very flexible schedules and the bonus of meeting new people and constantly learning about the law.

2. Stenographic Court Reporter

These officers of the court utilize a specialized shorthand in combination with a computerized stenograph machine to capture and preserve verbatim testimony in all types of legal proceedings. Steno reporters provide real-time streaming, rough draft copies, and final transcripts to legal participants, working either alone or in tandem with a team of proofreaders and editors, or “scopists.”

The training, offered at various trade schools across the country as well as online, is rigorous and self-driven and can be completed in approximately two years. Career opportunities are abundant in both the court system as a government employee and in the freelance arena as an independent contractor. Salaries range from approximately $45,000 (beginning) to $125,000 (experienced) in court systems nationwide, whereas freelance reporters’ earnings are determined by the volume and type of work they choose to take in their local legal market and can be substantially more than salaried reporters.

3. Legal Transcriptionist

If digital and stenographic court reporters are the keepers of the record, legal transcriptionists are the creators of the record. Transcriptionists process audio recordings from any number of sources, including courthouses, law firms, court reporting agencies, and state attorney offices, and turn them into verbatim certified legal transcripts. Using a variety of playback programs, transcriptionists listen to every word that is being said and turn it into words on the page. To be more efficient, many of them employ text expansion software, a foot pedal, and special templates to generate the transcript.

This job is normally done by independent contractors working from home and offers a very flexible environment. Full-time transcriptionists can expect to earn $55,000 or more. Certification may be required by some agencies, jurisdictions, or federal agencies and is provided by AAERT – Certified Electronic Transcriber – or NVRA – Certified Legal Transcriptionist. Training to be certified can take between two months and a year depending on previous experience and the amount of time dedicated to the program.

4. Legal Videographer

Using professional-grade cameras, microphones and recording equipment ensures that the video produced by this professional can be a valuable tool for testimony review, witness prep, and playback at trial. Videographers appear at depositions, inspections, medical exams, and other legal proceedings where attorneys want body language, tone and movement captured.

Often independent contractors, legal videographers make their own schedule, create their own pricing, and can easily expand their business. Generally, legal videographers have some type of background in video, film, or TV before entering the field, but most of the specific training is done on the job, although online training is available. Those wanting to be certified can do so through the NCRA – Certified Legal Video Specialist – or AGCV – Certified Deposition Video Specialist – and can expect to make between $40,000 and $70,000 a year.

5. Trial Technician

Unlike on TV where evidence just magically appears on a screen nearby when referenced, in real life, there is often a highly skilled trial technician making that magic happen. These technicians organize exhibits, design demonstratives, set up audiovisual equipment, and ultimately facilitate the presentation of the exhibits during a trial using specialized software and presentation equipment. Many times, trial technicians also assist in the development of trial strategy utilizing their understanding of how to push the technology while influencing the viewer – in many cases the judge and jury.

Trial technicians can work for a law firm directly, for a legal support company, or for a company dedicated to trial technology and often have an IT, digital media, or video production background. Those interested in the career can expect to make between $40,000 and $70,000 a year but have the potential to make more if they own their own company or specialize in a niche area of the law. Much of a trial technician’s training comes from on-the-job experience and from the software manufacturers, but technicians can get certified by NCRA or AGCV.

Law school isn’t a requirement to get into the legal profession! If you are interested in the practice of law and want to play a central role in the litigation process, check out if these careers are a fit for you.

About the Author:
Merritt Gilbert is the manager of digital learning operations at BlueLedge where she teaches digital reporting and legal transcription. In addition, Gilbert is very active in the reporting community and is co-chair of the continuing education committee at AAERT. She worked in a court reporting agency for more than 10 years, is an AAERT certified electronic reporter, a Florida professional reporter, graduated from Realtime Voice Academy, and has a BS from Florida State University.

Nearly every aspect of our lives, from the business to the personal, has seen a certain improvement because of technology. “Going native” means “going digital” these days and this is a good thing because it simplifies complex processes, automates repetitive tasks and gives us more “bang for our buck”, so to speak.

And this revolution is not confined to just a few industries. It has touched them all – not least in terms of transcription.

Transcription has now moved from large, reel-to-reel and microcasette tapes, to the simplicity of digital audio and video files. Simple, not only because they’re completely intangible, but because they can be transferred — uploaded, downloaded, manipulated, edited, changed — from anywhere in the world, by anyone in the world.

But this ease of transfer and intangibility is also the digital format’s Achilles heel. It promotes efficiency, certainly, but it also opens us up to security breaches, information theft and other vulnerabilities.

Why does data security matter?

After the recent Cambridge Analytica activities involving Facebook, and several major data “break-ins” that have affected digital powerhouses such as Google+ and Sony’s Play Station network, data security is finally receiving the scrutiny it deserves.

Legal moves like the EU’s GDPR laws have come in to effect precisely to begin to incentivize companies to become tighter, more stringent and more transparent and explicit with their data collection and use policies — as well as the practices that come from these policies.

But it’s not just about increased scrutiny in a climate of caution: It’s also the fact that almost everyone’s records and personal information, including information that can be used to directly identify individuals, is being openly distributed, shared and disseminated because of the intangible nature of digital data.

Without data security, people and their privacy is made vulnerable, and open to being used by those who have less than admirable intentions for it.

And in such a reality, businesses and people need data security that is not only “tight” but airtight.

How to ensure transcribed audio files remain safe and secure

So what about digital transcriptions and the resulting audio files? Transcriptions, especially those in the legal profession or in the insurance industries, usually contain sensitive and personal information. But, beyond this, any breaches are actually illegal and constitute a break in client-business confidentiality.

And it’s not just the information of policyholders, claimants, or defendants. Attorneys, investigators and other concerned parties in a legal proceeding may find their confidential notes, such as legal stratagems and other sensitive data, exposed.

So how can companies avoid “losing” their data through the transcription process, and protect files from being openly accessed when transferring?

Adopting security precautions like encryption

First off, data files, whether housed on-premises or outsourced to a secure data facility, must be encrypted.

This includes both the digital audio files of transcriptions as well as any typed digital files or documents that make reference to or include portions of the transcription. If transcription businesses do decide to offload the storage of files to another data facility, they should be thoroughly vetting that company’s data security procedures and fail-safes.

Have a written compliance procedure

Of course, now it’s all but mandatory that the IT departments of firms have written privacy policies and compliance procedures for securing customer data.

Some firms, for example, have a “no-logs” policy for users who access their platform. With transcriptions, however, the issue is not so much identifying users as preventing unlawful access of the files themselves.

Written compliance procedures state the process that must be followed when accessing or transferring data, so that everyone in the company is on the same page when doing so. This prevents individuals claiming to be ignorant of the protocols, and using a transfer method that can be easily hacked.

Make sure the office is quick to adopt and adapt

Written compliance together with concrete layers of security precautions all necessitate one big thing: That your office be technologically up-to-speed, ready to adapt to the changing nature of digital best practices, and prepared to adopt any new technologies that close off the loopholes for file access.

This doesn’t only mean the policies that surround access or the methods of transference. This also means deploying hardware that effectively facilitates security protections.

Avoid using transfer techniques that make files visible and vulnerable

A US-based company that specialized in providing transcription services encountered a major data security breach because of the way it was choosing to handle its transcription file transfers.

The audio and transcript files contained sensitive and “personally identifiable information” (PII) about consumers, including children. The company was working with a third-party contractor, an outsourcing venture in India that provided transcription services for cents on the dollar.

The only problem was that, in transferring these large files, the US-based transcription business decided to use FTP or “file transfer protocol” to “medical audio and transcript files on its computer network and transmit the files between the network and its typists”.

Because of this chosen methodology, the application stored and transmitted files in readable text (i.e. unencrypted), configured so that the files could be accessed online by anyone without authentication. As well, the transcriptions of audio files were being indexed by major search engines — which means that anyone doing a search could potentially stumble upon them.

This is a precautionary tale that should highlight one major lesson: avoid using any methods that leave files open to, or accessible by, the general public.

Understand the transfer pipeline and identify possible points for breaches

IT teams responsible for data security should have various levels of password protection that go way beyond randomized key logging, and should routinely review file access. Furthermore, files can be stored and accessed on a “need-to” basis or a role-basis, instead of granting company-wide access.

Designated IT personnel should also be conducting routine reviews that examine the entire transfer pipeline and process, using white-hat hacking to test the layers of data protection.

The quality of a transcription services company is not only in the quality of the finished product but, as you can see, in the measures with which they approach the sensitive content they’re handling.

Quality transcription companies will themselves work with vetted partners, do their part in securing digital transcription audio files under layers of safety and be able to show compliance through written privacy policies. The key for you is to do your due diligence and ensure these parts are in place.

There’s a myth running around that, pretty soon, human transcriptionists will be replaced with speech recognition technology.

But there are a number of issues with that assumption — not least because software isn’t yet geared towards oral or speech-based accuracy.

In other words, until machines can capture the finer subtitles of human language — including colloquialisms, inflections and tone — transcriptionists will be required to capture and parse what is being said as well as, at times, what is intended.

Case in point: When using four separate pieces of audio transcription software, a professional transcriptionist, Mary Ellen, put 15 minutes of a podcast to the test. When comparing overall quality and the number of errors, she found out that the transcriptions were “good enough” but missed many filler words.

Her verdict? That even amongst two of the “three star tools” she tested, the transcribed document produced would still need a second review, further cleaning up and polishing by a transcriptionist anyway.

Why is transcription so tricky for software? What is it about a human transcriber that can bring value and clarity to the entire transcription process?

Background Noise

Audio quality and background noise often present a problem for transcriptionists. They’ll have to rewind, playback and go through the recording, piece by piece, step by step, to uncover parts that are particularly unclear or garbled.

Human transcriptionists can make out voices and words over background noise. They can automatically catch pieces of speech that may otherwise get lost in translation, so to speak.

Accuracy in transcription relies on more than the recognition of oral words into script.

It also requires someone to filter out the extraneous noises and make a judgement call when it comes to capturing words that may trail off due to background noise or audio quality.

Distinguishing Accents and Dialects

Even if an individual is not familiar with a particular accent or dialect, our natural ability to search for and land on human speech in our communication makes humans expert communicators.

We have a tendency to move towards a common language and this allows us to reach for understanding and comprehension, even when it comes to dealing with unfamiliar accents or dialects we may be unfamiliar with — as long as the base language is shared by all.

This means that even if speakers in an audio recording have a heavy accent, human transcriptionists can use their own natural ability to filter words, coupled with their professional skills to capture meaning and convey it through transcription.

Fact Checking in Content

While transcriptions are usually about directly translating recorded speech on text, there are times when a speaker on the audio either says something nearly indistinguishable or when the speaker says something that seems out of place from the rest of the audio.

While the recording is clear, a human transcriptionist can actually go the extra mile and either check the facts behind the content in the recording, or use the content within the recording to fill in the blanks.

This is especially useful in the case of content that is confusing or trails off. Once the transcriptionist has gained some context or knowledge about the topic, they can infer and better forecast what is being discussed and what the speaker may be about to say.

Gaining just a bit of background knowledge can actually help them anticipate, listen and transcribe with greater clarity.

Technical and Business-Specific Content

Human transcriptionists can have their own areas of expertise, niches where they have in-depth background knowledge on a topic. For example, a transcriptionist used to legal jargon can better translate acronyms and citations for bylaws, marking these down in a natural way.

If a transcriptionist works for medical-based businesses or does a lot of IT work, they will be familiar with the lexicon that is specific to these industries. Transcriptionists have memory and this memory learns and accumulates knowledge the more they encounters special terms.

This knowledge is invaluable when it comes to creating a comprehensive transcription document. The same is true for business-specific content — if a transcriptionist is working with industry jargon, they can accurately convert key terms or internal company language that would be otherwise foreign to voice-recognition software.

Multiple Speakers and Overlapping Content

The value of working with a human transcriptionist is not just about the ability to filter out language or the natural tendency we have to intuit meaning from pure communication. As humans, we have the ability to keep up with several threads of conversation in one recording, dialogues that move back and forth between multiple participants.

Let’s say, for example, that you had a recording of a conference or a speakers’ panel for your business. While the recording is clear, there is more than one speaker and they’re all interrupting each other, engaged as they are in a professional debate.

Where audio transcription software might get confused, mixing one individual’s voice and information with another, human transcriptionists can identify various speakers on an audio recording through tone, voice, accent and other speech cues — such as the tendency to repeat a particularly idiosyncratic turn of phrase or word.

We can make out overlapping content and properly separate speakers, giving each their own role — and their own lines — in a transcription document.

The value that a human transcriptionist brings to audio recording work is more than simply about being able to note the difference between “too,” “two” and “to.” A transcriptionist can and will go above and beyond in their line of work, creating a document that is not only well-translated but infuses meaning and flow within a body of work.