Their listening skills help see justice is done

Court reporters accurate, stoic, and vital

Gayle Grayson, court reporter, at her post in Dedham Superior Court. Court reporters can make more than $70,000 a year. (Paul E. Kandarian Photo for The Boston Globe)

DEDHAM - Listen. Repeat. Record.

That describes Milton resident Gayle Grayson's workday, and that of hundreds of other court reporters in the state. Lawyers and judges may think they have the last word in court, but by law, that belongs to Grayson.

"We identify the speaker and then repeat everything that is said, verbatim," said Grayson one morning in Dedham Superior Court, where she was working on a civil case. "While others can get by on the gist of what's being said, I can't. I'm sworn by law to get it verbatim."

Grayson does so by holding up a mask-like device that cups over her nose and mouth, blocking out her voice, leaving her ears - and eyes - free to hear and see what's being said; she's become adept at reading lips. Her voice is recorded on tape cassettes, some of which must later be transcribed, depending on the case. The majority of court reporters in Massachusetts use voice recorders, she said.

It's not an easy job; the hazards are sore shoulders, carpal tunnel syndrome (particularly for those using stenographer typing machines), aching backs, and the stress of listening to gruesome or emotional testimony without reacting.

"There was one case of this mentally retarded young man who lived with his mother; he'd walk to work and every day she'd look out and see him coming home," said Grayson, a court reporter since 1981. "One day she saw a group of boys attacking him; she thought they were kicking him, but when she ran out, they were stabbing him. He died in her arms. All they wanted was his jacket, and his mother testified that if they'd asked, he'd have given it to them."

Testimony like that hits hard and can reduce anyone in a courtroom to tears - except court reporters. They cannot show their emotions, Grayson said, even when picking up evidence like a bloody shirt from a murder scene and tagging it with an exhibit number, which is also part of the job. "It gets to you, no question, but you can't let it show," Grayson said.

If there are too many voices heard at the same time, as is often the case when lawyers argue with witnesses or each other, the court reporter can request a bit more conversational order, via the judge, who always honors the request.

Court reporters can make more than $70,000 a year, according to the National Court Reporters Association. The association said there are more than 50,000 court reporters nationwide, the majority of them working in a freelance capacity outside the courtroom, including reporters who take depositions for lawyers or corporations, broadcast captioners, webcasters, and other fields.

"About 30 percent of court reporters actually work in the court system," said Jonathan Freeman, chief operating officer of the New England School of Court Reporting, based in Malden, with branches in Taunton, Worcester, and most recently Los Angeles. "The demand is tremendous; we can't place students fast enough who get a program certificate."

There is no license requirement to be a court reporter in Massachusetts, said Freeman, but there is a minimum proficiency requirement of recording 225 words per minute. Students who attain that level can find work almost immediately, Freeman said.

The National Institute of Real Time Court Reporting, an online school that relocated last year from Braintree to Burlington, teaches voice-recording court reporting over seven months at a cost of $15,899.

Outside of courtroom and deposition work, one rapidly growing field for court reporters is CART - Communication Access Real-Time Translation, which puts a trained reporter in college classrooms with hearing-impaired students. The reporter types what the instructor says and it pops up on the student's laptop. "That's getting big; those reporters can get $85 an hour now," Freeman said.

Though Grayson and other court reporters use voice recorders on their jobs, Freeman said the bulk of recording done for such things as depositions takes place on stenograph machines, which punch in a kind of shorthand. It takes about two years to master the course at his school, at a cost of roughly $25,000, Freeman said.

For court reporters, who carry the burden of accuracy, similar-sounding words are the enemy. "The court reporter can inadvertently change the facts: for example, if a lawyer asks an eyewitness in a murder trial, 'How much gin did you have to drink before you witnessed the homicide?' and the court reporter records 'two fifths' instead of 'two sips,' " Grayson said.

Concentration cannot be compromised, she said. "That's the hardest part, keeping 100-percent concentration 100 percent of the time; most jobs don't require that," Grayson said.

She's seen and heard it all in court. She was in court the day a defendant stabbed his own attorney; she's seen enraged people being sentenced flip over tables; she's tagged gruesome photos of murders. And she's recorded it all, for the record and for all time.

"I really love what I do; I really like public service," said Grayson. "I've been on medical cases, business cases, criminal cases, fraud, everything. It's something new all the time, and you're learning all the time."

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a profile of court reporter Gayle Grayson misstated Jonathan Freeman's affiliation with a court reporting school. Freeman is chief operating officer of the New England Court Reporting Institute, based in Malden, with branches in Taunton, Worcester, and Los Angeles, where it operates under the name Pivotal Court Reporting.