Court Transcripts - How Can They Make Your Work Easier?

Court Transcripts – How Can They Make Your Work Easier? In 2012, courts introduced the obligation to record hearings and prepare e-protocols. The traditional protocol has thus been replaced by a special e-protocol, delivered digitally on a CD. From that moment on, the work of lawyers became significantly complicated – it began to consume much more effort and time than was necessary before.

Listening to the recorded court hearing is very often extremely burdensome – both due to the quality of the recording and its size, and thus the problem of finding specific moments. In the vast majority of cases, the quality of digital dissertations is surprisingly low, which makes working with them extremely difficult.

A solution that makes it much easier for all people working with the e-protocol are court transcripts. It is a relatively new service on the market, which over the years has become more and more popular among law firms, prosecutors, police units, courts, as well as other companies or institutions.

Forensic transcriptions – advantages and format

There are several methods of making a trial transcript – but the classic one is by far the most functional. The use of speech recognition programs, unfortunately, does not allow for a sufficiently detailed and faithful reproduction of the course of the trial, which makes working with the recording even more complicated.

Human hand-made court transcripts are characterized by a perfect, faithful representation of the actual course of the trial. In the standard form, the transcript of the trial must be complete – i.e. be a faithful record of the actual course of events in the courtroom. It is not possible to interfere with the content of individual statements, even if they are cosmetic changes – such as syntax or sentence order.

Each judicial transcript must have a legend. Individual persons participating in the hearing are marked in it. It is very useful to have a pagination:

- - defendant,
  - plaintiff
  - Chairman,
  - Witnesses.

Sometimes, forensic transcription companies offer an additional service in the form of time stamps. These are markings in the transcription that allow you to embed certain statements in a time interval. It also often happens that unreadable places are marked in the transcription. Unfortunately – due to the very low quality of recordings of court hearings, even a lot of such places may appear.

Transcription files are generally formatted according to generally accepted standards found in word processors. So it is a Times New Roman font, size 12pt – 1.5 line spacing and 25 margins. Files are most often saved in the most popular formats – .doc (x) and .pdf. If the customer so wishes, the company will also be able to export the file to other formats.

As for the transcription time, it can really vary. For example, the transcription of a court hearing based on a two-hour recording can range from 12 to 48 hours. The exact time of completion depends on individual arrangements with a given company that performs the transcription for us. In a situation where we only need a judicial transcription of a fragment of the recording – we provide the company with a time period. Thanks to this, the implementation will be much faster and we will be able to continue working.

Transcription of court hearings – additional services

Many transcription companies, apart from the standard translation of the recording into text, also offer several additional services included in the file. One of the most common additions are emotions – for example, placed next to the transcript of witness statements. It is also possible to transcribe sounds from the courtroom, as well as the behavior of people and a description of the situation in the courtroom. In this case, the only condition is to provide the company with a video file.

How Much Does Forensic Transcription Cost?

The exact price of a given transcription depends primarily on the recording time. However, individual elements are also important – such as the speed of the trial, the quality of the recording itself or how people clearly say in the film or recording. In each case, the company performing the transcription makes an individual valuation. We can assume that the average price range is between PLN 150 and even 400 net per hour of recording.

Delivering recordings for transcription – accelerating production

From the perspective of the transcription company, the best form of delivery of base recordings is via the Internet. In the case of shorter recordings – by e-mail. When it comes to large files, such as video recordings, we can use services such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Many companies also provide their own server to which customers can upload files.

The electronic form ensures the shortest possible transcription time, as it allows the contracting company to start working in just a few minutes. However, if we do not have the possibility to send the recordings electronically – we can deliver them in person at the company’s headquarters.