Official Court Reporters
Guardians of the Record
The Cuyahoga County Court Reporters serve judges of the Court of Common Pleas in the Justice Center, visiting judges sitting by assignment in the Lakeside Courthouse, and they also report proceedings of both the Arraignment Room and Grand Jury.
As guardians of the record, members of the Court Reporters Department are responsible for the stenographic verbatim record of such proceedings for later use by judges, attorneys, litigants, the Court of Appeals, and any interested party. They are also entrusted with the archival of exhibits admitted into evidence.
The Court Reporters Department consists of 41 court reporters, all of whom are certified by the National Court Reporters Association as Registered Professional Reporters.
Many have attained, by examination, the advanced certification designations of Registered Merit Reporter, Registered Diplomat Reporter, and Certified Realtime Reporter. There are presently five court reporters who have won the Ohio Speed Contest, and the Department is well-represented yearly in both the Speed and Realtime Contests, with multiple reporters having qualified and placed in each.
Frequently Asked Questions
Transcripts of a court hearing may be purchased by calling 216.443.8500. Please have the case number available if possible.
Grand Jury proceedings are secret. A judge must grant permission in order for the transcript to be prepared.
All members of the Court Reporters Department are certified at 225 words per minute. Many are certified at 260 words per minute, and some have passed tests competitively at 280 words per minute.
Research conducted by both NCRA and OCRA concludes that a live court reporter is the more accurate and cost effective method of making the record. Given the physical setting of a courtroom itself (i.e., multiple people speaking simultaneously, foreign accents, medical and technical testimony, ambient noise, etc.), a well-trained and highly qualified court reporter is best-suited to make an accurate verbatim record and has the ability to immediately interrupt proceedings if difficulty in making the record arises. Nationally, there have been innumerable instances of electronic recording failure resulting in no record with cases needing to be retried at great expense to the court.
