A recognized court reporting school shall offer at least the
following minimum prescribed course of study for not less than the hours
specified in order to obtain and maintain board approval:
(a) Machine Shorthand or Voice Writing and
transcription...........................................................2300
hours
(1) The program shall include classroom
lecture or non-lecture instruction in the mastery of making verbatim records of
depositions, hearings, meetings, conventions and judicial proceedings, by means
of machine shorthand writing or voice writing, and the accurate transcription
of such proceedings.
(2) Tests used
to qualify students to sit for the CSR exam shall be transcribed under direct
supervision. Schools may require all other tests to be transcribed under
supervision.
(3) When the machine
shorthand student reaches a proficiency of 80 words per minute on unfamiliar
material, the student shall be required to transcribe dictation from
stenographic notes of varying difficulty (for the purposes of this subsection,
"varying difficulty" shall mean content containing changing or differing
degrees of complexity of vocabulary) and subject matter of a length equal to
five minutes. When the voice writing student reaches a proficiency of 120 words
per minute on unfamiliar material, the student shall be required to transcribe
dictation from voice notes of varying difficulty and subject matter of a length
equal to five minutes.
(4)
Individual dictation classes, other than theory classes, shall include only
students whose tested reporting speeds are within the same 20-30 words per
minute range on similar dictation material.
(5) Students shall be provided the
opportunity to read back from their stenographic or voice notes a minimum of
one time each day.
(6) Schools
shall provide students with the opportunity to practice with school-approved
speed-building material a minimum of one hour per day after school
hours.
(7) These hours may be
reduced if a student is able to pass the qualifier exam defined in section
2412 of this chapter before having
completed these hours.
(8) When the
voice writing student reaches a proficiency of reporting 200 words per minute
on unfamiliar material, the student will be tested to determine that they
cannot be heard from a distance of two feet away from where the student is
reporting.
(b)
English...........................................................240 hours
A minimum of 150 of these hours shall be in classroom lecture
or non-lecture instruction. Instruction in the fundamentals of English grammar
and usage with emphasis on sentence structure, punctuation, spelling,
capitalization, and vocabulary development.
(c)
Medical...........................................................120 hours
A minimum of 75 of these hours shall be in classroom lecture
or non-lecture instruction. Instruction, dictation, and transcription in human
anatomy, including definitions of medical prefixes and suffixes and
terminology.
(d)
Legal...........................................................150 hours
A minimum of 100 of these hours shall be in classroom lecture
or non-lecture instruction. Instruction, dictation, and transcription material
shall cover diverse subject areas including, but not limited to, the
following:
(1) Legal Terminology.
The general concepts of the law of real and personal
property, torts, contracts, probate, family, business, criminal, evidence, and
civil procedure.
(2) Court
and Deposition Procedures.
(A) The
responsibility of the reporter in the courtroom, including the reporting of
jury impanelment, opening statements, testimony, objections, summations, jury
instructions, approaching the bench, in camera proceedings, and reading back to
the jury.
(B) The responsibility of
the reporter in depositions, including administering oaths, the reporting of
testimony and objections, reporting with an interpreter, reading back,
directing (citing) the witness, certifying questions, and marking
exhibits.
(C) Management of
pertinent records, including stenographic or voice notes, work sheets,
financial records, daily reporting jobs, exhibits and transcripts.
(3) Ethics of the Court Reporting
Profession.
The professional responsibilities of a reporter, including,
but not limited to, those outlined in the Professional Standards of
Practice.
(4) The California
law and regulations and California Rules of Court affecting Certified Shorthand
Reporters.
(e)
Keyboarding...........................................................45 words
per minute net
A course to prepare students to achieve a typing proficiency
of 45 words per minute.
(f)
Transcript
Preparation...........................................................25 hours
(1) Instruction in the current methods for
preparing and producing a complete transcript, including, but not limited to,
equipment and formatting standards.
(2) Instruction in the preparation of
transcripts, including covers, appearance pages, index pages, speaker
identification, certificates, and exhibits, and the preparation of work
sheets.
(3) Development of
proofreading skills in order to produce an accurate, verbatim
transcript.
(g) Resource
Materials...........................................................5 hours
Instruction in accessing resource materials including via the
internet to provide the student with the ability to use such materials,
including, but not limited to, case citations, codes, almanacs, directories,
street atlases, and dictionaries.
(h) Apprenticeship
Training...........................................................60 hours
(1) Before the student attains a proficiency
of 120 words per minute, the student shall observe a minimum of five hours of
proceedings in a court of record.
After attaining a proficiency of 120 words per minute and
before attaining a proficiency of 180 words per minute, the student shall
observe a minimum of five hours of proceedings in a court of record.
(2) When the student reaches a
proficiency of 180 words per minute, the student shall sit in and report with a
certified shorthand reporter 40 hours of court proceedings or depositions of
which a minimum of 10 hours shall be in depositions and a minimum of 10 hours
shall be in court.
A maximum of 10 hours of this training may be gained in
reporting mock proceedings sponsored by a law firm or by a law school.
(3) The student shall be required
to transcribe and submit to the school for approval a minimum of 20 consecutive
pages from stenographic or voice notes taken at a court proceeding and a
minimum of 20 consecutive pages from stenographic or voice notes taken at a
deposition in compliance with the Minimum Transcript Format
Standards.
(4) After attaining a
speed of 160 words per minute, the student shall receive a minimum of 10 hours
additional instruction to review the following categories:
(A) Court and deposition procedures
(B) Professional practice and ethics,
including the Professional Standards of Practice
(C) Legal research and the California
Codes
(D) Job preparation skills
including professional appearance and etiquette, attitude and demeanor,
interviewing skills, and resume writing.
(5) Schools shall document that they provide
students with the opportunity to interact with professional court reporters at
least four times per calendar year, to offer mentoring, counseling, guest
speakers, job shadowing, etc.
(i)
Technology...........................................................60 hours
(1) The student shall demonstrate knowledge
of basic computer terminology and the ability to manage the computer operating
system outside the specialized Computer Aided Transcription (CAT) software,
including, but not limited to, functions such as deleting, moving, and renaming
files, and creating electronic files.
(2) The student shall demonstrate an
understanding of the concepts of litigation support, Web streaming,
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), Best Practices for the use of
Backup Audio Media (BAM), and captioning.
(3) The student shall demonstrate the ability
to produce a transcript from the student's own stenographic or voice notes in
compliance with the Minimum Transcript Format Standards.
(4) The student shall spend a minimum of 10
hours in realtime writing.
The student shall also demonstrate the ability to set up and
connect the components to provide interactive realtime. Interactive realtime is
defined as the student outputting to a second computer.
(5) The student shall demonstrate knowledge
of how to prepare an electronic file from the student's own stenographic or
voice notes.
TOTAL MINIMUM PRESCRIBED ACADEMIC HOURS
...........................................................660 hours
(j) A recognized court
reporting school may grant equivalent proficiency for one or more classes to
applicants who have provided proof of prior educational or practical experience
which is directly related to classes described in Section
2411(a) of this
chapter.
(k) A recognized court
reporting school shall provide access to a library of reference materials. This
access shall be provided on campus. On-campus access may include online access.
These materials shall include at least the following:
(1) Current reference materials shall include
at a minimum: Business & Professions Code, Sections 8000 through 8051;
Title 16, California Code of Regulations, Division 24, Sections
2400 through
2481; Code of Civil Procedure,
Sections
2021
and
2025;
Government Code, Chapter 5, Article 9, commencing with section 69941; and
California Rules of Court.
(2)
Current reference materials shall include at a minimum: California Civil Code,
Code of Civil Procedure, Evidence Code, Government Code, Penal Code, Welfare
and Institutions Code, Health and Safety Code, Probate Code, Family Code and
Labor Code; a world atlas, a world almanac, a local street atlas, standard and
specialty dictionaries, drug manufacturer reference, and directory of
attorneys.
In addition, the Board recommends that the school also
maintains current professional association publications and current
publications including at least one daily newspaper and magazines such as Time,
Newsweek, Business Week, Money, Inc., Fortune, etc.
(l) Whenever there has been a change in
school status as set forth in Section
8027(f)
of the Business and Professions Code, the change or changes as specified shall
be reported to the board as required by Business and Professions Code Section
8027(f).
Such report shall be in writing on the letterhead of the school or other
stationery setting forth the current name, address and telephone number of the
school, and shall be signed by the responsible program manager, the school
owner, the responsible corporate officer if the school is a corporation or the
responsible partner if the school is a partnership.
(m) All annual statements filed with the
board by court reporting schools in compliance with Section 8027
(l) of the Business and Professions Code shall be in writing
on the letterhead of the school or other stationery setting forth the current
name, address and telephone number of the school and shall have enclosed or
attached thereto the current school catalog as specified by Section 8027
(l).
(n) Each
court reporting school shall advise all applicants to its court reporting
program of the existence and purpose of the board, including the board's
address, telephone number, and Web site which shall be prominently displayed in
any catalogs or Web sites which include course offerings.
(o) For the purposes of this Division, "voice
writing" shall have the meaning set forth in Section 8017.5(b) of the
Code.
