Celebrating 125 Years: How the NCRA Serves the Public

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:20] Lee Kantor. Here another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today we have Kristin Anderson with National Court Reporter’s Association,she’s the President, on today. Welcome, Kristin.

Kristin Anderson: [00:00:34] Thank you Lee. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] I am so excited to learn about your association. Tell us a little bit about National Court Reporter Association. How you serving folks?

Kristin Anderson: [00:00:45] Well, actually it’s exciting. Our association is celebrating its 125th year this year. So it’s been it’s a very special year. So we’ve been in existence for 125 years. And hopefully we’re going to be around for 125 more. So we’re an association of approximately 12,000 members. And the mission statement of Ncra is to and Ncra stands for National Court Reporters Association promotes excellence among those who capture and convert the spoken word to text, and is committed to supporting every member in achieving the highest level of professional expertise. So we a lot of things we do, we serve the public in the court setting, and also we represent Captioners who do a broadcast captioning and, um, access real time cart captioning is access real time for those that are in the deaf and hard of hearing community. So we represent the interests of those people. We offer certifications. That’s probably where we are backbone of the association. That’s where a lot of people come. They want to get their certifications. We have several certifications and I can talk about those, but, um, they’ve evolved through a time. So we have speed requirements to be a court reporter. If everybody knows what a court reporter is, a stenographer, we have a little machine that has 24 keys on it. And it’s it looks everybody remembers it back in the day when you type on it, mine is out in the courtroom. I should have brought it in here to. I could have shown, but it’s, uh, we take down everything phonetically. And so it’s a service we provide for the public in capturing the record. And so it’s an important instrument and kind of a timeless profession, I would say that we’ve been doing for all the ages. There were pen readers and then there’s been machine riders for a long time now, really about 100 years.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:38] So. So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Kristin Anderson: [00:02:43] Um, how did I get. That’s a great question. Um, well, I mean, when I was going into college, I, I loved to organization being doing legal work and stuff, and my dad was a tax accountant, um, every year. So he told me, well, why don’t you look into this profession? They seem to do quite well. And so I went on a shadowing experience. And I would always encourage any young people that are out in the world not knowing what they want to do. You go shadow something for one day, and you might know if you think you have a knack for the profession you want to go into, and I. I loved it from the minute, um, I went in shadowed with somebody that was a mutual student, probably about ten years before I, um, when I got a school, she had been working. And so I went and shadowed. And then, um, fast forward a few years, I was a coworker of hers. That was the first place I worked. So is my dad. Kind of inspired me because it’s like the greatest profession that you’ve never heard about. People were just like that quiet little person in the courtroom, um, trying to take down all the proceedings, um, very quickly, all the time. It seems faster and faster. But we also, when I mentioned the certifications, we do real time. And so that’s very vital, um, in a huge asset that we provide from just making the record that we take down with our steno, our computer, um, aided transcription software translates that and so into English text. And then we also can provide that by streaming real time for our judges or attorneys in the courtroom. And actually, um, it can be done there and in the deposition setting. And then, as I mentioned, the cart cart captioning access for those that, um, have deaf or hard of hearing or late deafened adults.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:33] Now, I mean, this is just fascinating because everybody in any movie that has a courtroom, there’s a person there that is, you know, you write or people like you in it and you wonder, like, how do you kind of they always kind of have this straight face, this neutral, um, demeanor about them. Is that a hard part of this when you’re hearing testimony or is that you kind of. Tune it out. But you’re listening. But you’re not trying to get emotionally involved.

Kristin Anderson: [00:05:04] Yeah, I would, that’s a good observation. I would say a lot of those things just because, um, our job is difficult and we take it very seriously because, uh, we are taking down the most intimate affairs of people’s lives, and you want to be attuned to what’s going on. And, um, you know, if people get emotional and they talk over each other, you can, um, step in and say, can you repeat that and stuff? That’s why, um, it’s so essential to have that human element when you’re making the records. So yeah, we, we do or like some, some refer to us as solemn soldiers in there, but we, um, we know our job is and we take it very seriously because we’re there to as a neutral party. Most importantly, we don’t have any interest in the outcomes of those cases and just providing the service of the record for an appeal purposes so that everybody can go through the process of the justice system.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] Yeah, it’s one of those things I had a chance when I was younger to be part of a grand jury. And, um, and I don’t think that a lay person who has never been on a jury or a grand jury or in the courtroom, like, you see, probably, you know, almost every day, but people take this very seriously. This isn’t like fun and games and people, you know, kind of being dismissive. I think by and large, people’s heart is in the right place when they walk into that courtroom, they’re trying to do. Right. Um, is that what you experienced? Oh, you.

Kristin Anderson: [00:06:36] Mean like in the jury or just.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:37] Just the the everybody involved in this, it seems like they’re trying to get they’re trying to be fair and right, and they’re not being they’re not taking it lightly. The responsibility.

Kristin Anderson: [00:06:49] No. Yeah. Like I mentioned, we are taking down the most serious things in life. And, um, it can be very emotional. I mean, family law cases are very emotional because they often involve marriage and divorce and custody of children. And then, um, there’s crimes against children, there’s crimes, um, in general. So there’s victims and there’s, um, people involved. So but everybody has a job in the courtroom, and an attorney is to advocate for their client and for reporters to make the record and judges to, you know, run the proceedings and, um, give everybody a fair hearing. So, yeah, everybody has it takes a whole team to make, um, make it all work. But I think it all comes together, uh, really? Well, um.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:41] Now, um, do you find that, uh, is it difficult to get new people to take this job? I mean, I’m sure this isn’t on the radar of most people when they’re thinking about career.

Kristin Anderson: [00:07:52] Well, um, we we’ve been a lot better about that the last few years. We have, um, something called the Ncra A to Z program. And what that is, it’s, um, ncra is about promoting and protecting our profession, but that’s about promoting it. And so it’s a free course that you can take through our web if you go to our website and, um, you can put in A to Z and it’ll, it’ll take you to the correct area, but it’s um, or it’s at discover org and it’s about a six week program. It’s six weeks and you learn all the letters, as I said, A to Z on your machine and learn how to write little phrases. Everything we take down is phonetically, uh, down in strokes, as opposed to every single letter like you would on a quirky keyboard, however. So yeah, people can, um, check it out. And I can tell you when I used to, um, work in my previous jurisdiction down in Bexar County in San Antonio, Texas, uh, there’s a group we had our judge that would swear in the panel of jurors, and there would be several hundred people there would tell everybody. We’re always looking for more court reporters. There’s this free program. So what better place? And a jury, um, pool downstairs where they’re all meeting to see where they’re going to go to all these practically 50 courts. And so, um, whether they’re interested or somebody in their family is interested, it’s a great way to kind of tip your, uh, stick your toe in the water and see if you’re cut out for it. Um, and if you really want to invest, go into school and learning the theory and, and going forward. So it’s just an introduction to steno program that we’ve offered and it’s had great success.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:31] Now do you have to have kind of legal background or legal education or certifications?

Kristin Anderson: [00:09:38] No. You um, those are great things. When you’re in school, you, um, you’ll take legal terminology. You’ll take medical terminology because there can be med mal cases that are those are very difficult. And, um, so you don’t really I would say you need a good command of the English language. That’s very important. Now, however, the spoken language doesn’t always sound as eloquent as a book, and it doesn’t come out that way. But we’re there to get what is actually said. So being able to punctuate and having a good command of that is very important. And um, being very, um, you need to be self-assertive in a sense of knowing, um, you have people after you’re in court, they’ll order transcripts and you have to work on your get your transcripts finalized. And being very organized, I think, is what I’m saying is a good skill set of being a court reporter.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] So now does every court reporter have to be certified through the National Court Reporters Association?

Kristin Anderson: [00:10:37] Um, not everyone. Um, ours is a we do offer a national um, certification called the PR, the registered professional reporter, and a lot of states adopt that as their state legislation. So but some states are different. So for example, in Texas they do not offer reciprocity for that. I had to take the Texas test to be certified here. Um, however, I used to live in Kansas years ago and they honored my PR certification. Um, so it just kind of depends on the state, but a lot of them utilize the test so they don’t have to set up their own board and go through the whole process of offering testing. They’ll they’ll honor the national test a lot of places.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:21] Now, what um, what was the reason that you got so involved with the association that you’re now the president, like.

Kristin Anderson: [00:11:29] Oh, I, um, you know, uh, actually, I went to to, um, school, got out and started working in my home state and then moved to Kansas. And I, um, when I right after I moved there, when my father passed away and he was very involved, um, giving back on church council, he was on the township supervisor and always giving back in some way. And I had a friend of mine said, oh, you know, you should um, after a year went by, she goes, you should, um, give back and get involved and make a difference. And, um, having a, you know, a voice heard on a state level for what’s going on and things that are affecting our profession. So I did and I’ve done secretary, treasurer, um, vice president, all that stuff. I did that all in Kansas. And, um, I’ve worked in several courts, um, from Illinois to Kansas to Texas through the years. I’ve been working 24 years now. And so I got involved. And the thing is, is you get more than you give. I think a lot of times in leadership. So, um, you start giving back. And you meet a lot of great people and we have a lot in common. And so we have common interests. And I got involved with that, just trying to mostly not only promote the profession as we’ve discussed, but protecting it. And, um, meaning that making sure that the integrity of the record is seen all the way through, through the ears and making sure that human element is there. When you have a stenographer who always has care, custody and control of your record and just trying to be involved and, um, make sure we offer services that are valuable to our membership.

Kristin Anderson: [00:13:17] We recently were up in Washington, D.C. on the, um, we had boot camp and we were on the hill and we had a bill, um, we were working on about, um, asking for a task force for research and oversight of potential AI in the Courts Act of 2024. So we were working on that because we think that our, like our lawmakers, need to put guardrails in place about, um, making sure, um, AI isn’t just put in and there’s no people have access to all that information. We talked about how people come in. They have they talk about very private things in their lives, medical conditions, social security numbers, children’s names, um, credit card numbers, bank accounts sometimes. So you want to make sure you always know who’s going to have access to that information. And as a licensed professional who’s accountable, um, to, um, my licensing board, actually, here in Texas, for example, you don’t want to you don’t want to compromise that. So you’re paid, you’re a professional and you keep all that information confidential. So those are important. But that’s how I’ve gotten involved with leadership was just, um, going through the ranks of that and just, um, making a difference. And I guess I’m kind of going into leadership. It was always making sure the members are heard about what matters to them. And I think that is a big component of leadership is a lot of times. I became president of Ncra back in August of 2023, and I my term will be up in, oh no, it was July.

Kristin Anderson: [00:14:58] It was a little before um, August and it’ll my term will be up on August 1st. And so it’s been a journey. It’s been very busy. Um, I’m in a very busy court, but, uh, you just want to make sure everybody’s interests are heard, um, in a way that, um, can make a difference. Uh, a lot of times people think, um, you know, people complain about stuff and they think, oh, why isn’t Ncra or something doing this? And I really think a lot of it is, is people just want to be heard. And so it kind of goes back to Covey’s, um, book about, um, seek first to understand, then to be understood. So those are just some that’s just a highlight of some things in leadership that I think are important. And people want to know that they’re being heard and their concerns are being addressed. And a big thing that the board of the NCC board of directors brought, um, before this year was a members matter meeting, and there was some things that need some addressing that they kind of resurfaced through the years and through different presidents, and we wanted to address them. And so now we have a page on our website available to our members that it’s so we don’t have to always revisit issues because that’s always a concern sometimes of revisiting issues. You can’t be up looking at the 30,000 foot level of the future of the association and the profession. Um, sometimes when you’re dealing with, um, some issues that have come up time and time again, sometimes, if that makes sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:29] Yeah. I think you, um, mentioned a very important part. Like if you’re not serving your members and your membership isn’t growing, that’s a major problem. I mean, that that’s something that you really should be rethinking, because the reason you’re in an association is to be of service to the members. I mean, the members are the heart of the association. Without them, there would be no association.

Kristin Anderson: [00:16:53] Exactly, exactly. I agree with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:57] Now, are there opportunities within the association to help the member get, you know, opportunities or to network with, uh, amongst themselves and, you know, get kind of maybe more learning or collaboration?

Kristin Anderson: [00:17:12] Yeah, we have a lot of, um, um, a learning center that people can go in and get, um, continuing education points for, um, their certifications. But, um, a few years back during Covid, actually, we even provide a lot of services. Free May is mental Health awareness month. And so, um, we offer free webinars on that for our membership. Because not only for yourself, you might have families that are going through things. Um, working in the legal field can be a stressful job, so it’s just good to have, um, that kind of outlet available to you. So we have those kind of resources as well. We also, um, we have a foundation and we have relief for any kind of world disaster. Um, well, world national disaster here. Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and things that happen. They can reach out for support from their association and a lot of member benefits, um, that we offer there. So it’s just trying to offer them a lot of tools that they can use for themselves, um, to make them to make life easier, life better and a better professional, um, type of things. So, yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:26] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Kristin Anderson: [00:18:30] Well, we always need more people, uh, going into the profession, um, because this is a great job that, like I mentioned in the beginning that you’ve never heard of. And so there there’s really you’re going to find a job somewhere when you get done. It’s not that. Oh, I went to college and got a degree. It’s a usually a two year. It’s a, it’s usually associate degree program. And in a community college and some people can get done in two years. Some people take a little longer. Just depends on how long you can speed, how quickly you can build your speed to be a stenographer. And so, um, getting the word out about this is a great job. If you’re wanting to get out into the workplace and, um, make a very comfortable living. Um, I court reporters usually do very well. Um, you have to work very hard, but it’s, um, it’s very worth it, I think. So, um, I’ve been single all my years and been able to support myself in my Labradors, so it’s it’s gone well for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:26] So now, is it something that, um, like you mentioned, like, if I, I go through the program, I get my speed up. Um, I, is there going to be an opportunity near me, or is it something that I might have to travel and go, oh, you know what? Like, like you mentioned, you lived in a variety of states like, oh, I’m going to have to go to another state in order for the opportunity.

Kristin Anderson: [00:19:50] Um, well, there’s opportunities everywhere. Um, you can. There’s not as much as there used to be during Covid. There’s remote depositions, so you can work remotely, but sometimes there’s notary, um, requirements in areas. So that can make it a challenge. So you can do that. I mentioned cart captioning that can either sometimes be on location or that a lot of that is remote. People caption the weather while they’re sitting in Iowa for Canada or on the west coast somewhere. So that can be done. Captioning is usually done from somebody remotely from somebody’s home. And even in states there’s official ship openings. There’s a lot of opportunity for deposition work, which is pretrial discovery. Depositions are also done by freelance court reporters. And so there’s opportunity there. So if you wanted to move to Chicago or, uh, Tucson, Arizona, you’re going to find opportunities.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:48] I think so, yeah. So most kind of even mid to large cities there’s going to be a lot of opportunity.

Kristin Anderson: [00:20:55] Yeah I think so. I mean they there’s some remote areas that have a hard time filling official positions. And but they have a hard time filling out a lot of sometimes a lot of positions. I think, um, society kind of just gravitates towards larger cities right nowadays than they did 50, 60 years ago or more.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:14] So if somebody wants to learn more about National Court Reporters Association, what’s a website again?

Kristin Anderson: [00:21:20] It’s. Uh ncra.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:22] Org Ncaa.org. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kristin Anderson: [00:21:31] Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:33] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association leadership Radio.