The Court Scopist Profession

Court scopists are responsible for editing or transcribing the unformatted and un-researched testimony or notes taken by real-time legal transcriptionists (court reporters) in the course of depositions, trials, arbitrations and all other courtroom proceedings as well as for business meetings, corporate conferences, etc. A court scopist produces the final transcript from the court reporter’s undefined stenotype. Part of a scopist’s duties is to transcribe the stenotype into correctly punctuated English and to provide appropriate formatting according to each transcript type. Professional scopists enable court reporters to continue taking more court testimony as they “scope” the court reporter’s previous days’ work.

Technological developments (the Internet, email, and various file transfer programs and services) have allowed the scoping profession to develop into an international home-based business opportunity for people with the required talents and skills. Court scopists today receive the court reporter’s notes via email, or on disk, or they can provide remote real-time court scoping services. A skilled and knowledgeable court scopist can work from home, whether he/she lives in Sandy , Utah or anywhere else in the world.

The minimum skills a court scopist must have include the ability to read stenotype, general computer proficiency, familiarity with CAT software and a flexible work ethic that enables him/her to work according to the court reporter’s specifications.

The scoping profession is an increasingly important profession. In the U.S. , the first Certified Professional Scopist test was administered in 2005. Today’s court scopists are well-trained, have access to reference sites on the Internet, and can produce high-quality accurate court transcripts in less time than ever before.