Ever since I was born, every four years I have had the World Cup be a part of my life.  In the ‘60s my Dad would watch the games on the Mexican stations since the U.S. stations didn’t carry the games.  We would hear “GOOOOAAAALLLLL” yelled by the television announcer, and my Dad would pump his legs in the air sitting on his favorite recliner, with all of us kids sitting on the floor woo-hoo’ing with excitement and joy.  After a game we would run into the front yard with a soccer ball and kick it around.

One of the themes that run throughout my blogs is the fact that I liken court reporters to great athletes.  As a new reporter just licensed and beginning a court reporting career, you might be good enough to be licensed and good enough to do simple litigation, but I promise you in four years you are going to hit a new milestone and become suddenly much better.  That happens again at eight years and even twelve years.  I was shocked how much better I was in year twelve compared to year eight.  One would think after eight years of doing something, you are going to be about as good as you are going to get.   But surprisingly, there was a whole new level of greatness that wasn’t just from learning new briefs.  I became a much faster, cleaner writer. 

Where do these new heights of ability come from?  I believe confidence and anticipation are factors.    The more you report, the better you can read the room and understand when an objection is going to be made, a read-back is going to be asked for, and when to hold on for dear life when someone is talking at 300+ words per minute, knowing they are going to have to take a breath to allow you to catch up.

As athletes, court reporters can never stop striving to be better.  We cannot become “good enough,” or we will never make the World Cup team.  I have a tremendous amount of pride in the reporters who work my calendar.  I brag to my clients about a court reporter’s special certifications, the fact that I have national and international speed champions covering depositions for me, and that all of my court reporters truly care and want to be the best. 

When a court reporter is reporting a high-profile, tense, huge litigation, it is very exciting.  Being in a room full of some of the greatest minds in the legal industry, making the record, having the attorneys consider you to be “the most important person in the room” is like being in the World Cup.  You have to be the best you have ever been on that given day and during the whole case.  The tricky part is you might not know when you are walking into the World Cup.  You might think you are covering a last minute doctor deposition, and it turns out you are reporting a patent case for the sequencing of the human genome.  Court reporters always have to be in top shape, ready to go.

I wonder if in four years, during the next World Cup, I will be even a better court reporter.   I think the answer will be “YES.”  In 2011 I will celebrate my 30^th year as a court reporter.  Can I get better?   Faster? I sure hope so.  I love competing in the World Cup of Court Reporting!!!!  “GOOOOAAAALLLLL”

rosalie@kramm.com

@rosaliekramm (twitter)

I was chatting with Chris Jordan, my husband, last night about my writing.  He was monitoring a text stream I was doing for a client via Remote Counsel.  Chris commented on how my writing reminds him of golfing.  I said, “What?”  He said he can tell I write differently than I did when he first met me 17 years ago. 

I am getting older, almost 50, and my writing style has changed.  I don’t pound as hard as I did when I first got out of school, and I look for shortcuts whenever possible.  If I am building a job dictionary, my tendency is to write Mr. and the first syllable of a person’s name, and that becomes my brief.  I used to wait until a break to create briefs so attorneys watching my writing through interactive realtime would never see any of my briefs written on the fly or shortcuts.  As a seasoned court reporter, I know the attorneys will not freak out if I create briefs before their very eyes, and they know how to read through them.   My stress level is nothing compared to when I was a new court reporter.

So what does that have to do with golfing?

When Chris first began playing golf in college, he says his tendency was to whack the ball with all of his might.  It was not a game of finesse or laying up shots.  It was a game of hit the ball super hard, get to the next shot, and end up being frustrated by the 18^th hole.  These days, as a 51-year-old, Chris has slowed down his stroke, is more conscious of form, and the ball goes a lot farther and where it is supposed to go. 

As a new court reporter, one might have the tendency to pound the keys, worry about every stroke being perfect, and by the end of the day be exhausted.  My advice is to remember to take deep breaths and focus on stroking fewer keys (use briefs).  Especially learn the briefs for objections.  The attorneys say the same thing over and over, for instance, lack of foundation; calls for speculation; not reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence.  A court reporter can do some dramatic catching-up learning the briefs for objections

The less pounding, the fewer strokes a court reporter makes, the less stress you will place on your body and your mind. 

By the way, my new sport is going to be golf.  It will be a great escape from the day-to-day court reporting world.

rosalie@kramm.com

@rosaliekramm (Twitter)

Court reporters spend hours and hours sitting, straining to hear, and are banging on the keyboard with thousands of strokes a day.  Court reporting is a strenuous career and can be tough on the body.  When I was in high school, I was diagnosed with having scoliosis and lordosis.  Lordosis is defined as an inward curvature of a portion of the vertebral column.  Scoliosis is defined as the spine curving away from the middle or sideways.  In my opinion, becoming a court reporter was probably the worst profession I could have chosen for my spine/posture.     

I have been a big producer in my career, writing on the average approximately 2,000+ pages a month year after year.  For most of that time I did my own scoping and proofing (more hunching over a computer). 

I became a licensed court reporter in 1981.  By 1991 my neck and shoulders were in constant pain.   I was taking eight Advils a day.   One of my girlfriends suggested I start getting massages.  I thought of massages as something rich people get when they are on vacation.  My first masseuse was Renee’, a holistic South African woman.  She suggested yoga.  In those days I was very driven, worked all of the time, and thought of yoga as something limber people could do, but wasn’t for me.  I was really insecure about my lack of limberness and my posture.  So I didn’t take her advice, but I would get massages here and there and kept up with my Advil regime.

But then in 1996 I started to lose the ability to write a final S.  My right pinky finger was getting really weak.  Then I had trouble with my final T.  My right ring finger didn’t work right.  Both fingers were tingling.  I was getting scared.  Another friend of mine recommended I go see a man, Steve, who did “sports massage.”  When I went to him, I was desperate.  After looking me over, Steve recommended I get weekly massages and simultaneously go through a Rolfing program to expedite loosening me up.  The Rolfing and Steve’s massages were super painful, but I loved every minute of it.  My fingers came back to normal within a couple of weeks.  It turns out my neck muscles were so tight the nerves in my fingers were losing power. 

I have been receiving bi-weekly massages for the past 19 years.  My neck and shoulders are pain free, and I haven’t a low backache with spasms since I started my massages.  Now, I play soccer, do a boot camp, and lift weights at the gym.  My goal is to improve my posture, so I do a lot of shoulder, chest, and low back work. 

I will always have lordosis/scoliosis, but if I can slow it down and have fun, I am happy.  If I could go back in time, I wish I would have been doing yoga, Pilates, weight lifting, dancing – anything – parallel with going to court reporting school and kept exercising throughout my career.

The reason I am writing all of this is to advise young court reporters to pay attention to your bodies.  It is imperative to exercise and stretch.  Hopefully, you have fun and enjoy exercising.   Keep thinking of yourselves as professional athletes – and your sport happens to be writing super fast and being incredibly accurate – your sport is court reporting.   Keep your body fit for your sport.

rosalie@kramm.com

@rosaliekramm (Twitter)