Important context: The information above describes how our profession typically operated before COVID-19. Post-pandemic conditions have significantly altered many of these practices.
President, Accurate Realtime Inc.
1) Tell me a little bit about yourself and your organization.
I was a court reporter in Vancouver from 1986 to the present. In the mid ‘90s I was hired as an Official
Court Reporter and had an office in the Vancouver Courthouse. However, as of 1997 when we lost our
jobs, I had already cultivated business relationships with several organizations supporting people with
hearing loss. I became a Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) captioner for them. The
business grew to the point that I incorporate and now run the only incorporated BC company dedicated
to this kind of work.
The work we now do for the courts is as CART captioners for people with hearing loss involved in the
judicial system. To be clear, this is not ASL or American Sign Language, but rather instant speech-to-text
translation. Though I and my subcontractors are, strictly speaking, not interpreters, that’s where we’ve
been categorized. When we act as interpreters, we do not produce the official record.
2) What do you need from court administration to do your work?
- When we’re booked by court services, we need to know the parties to the action so we can enter
those names into our database.
- The registry, the judiciary, and the lawyers, including the person using our service, need to read our information sheet. This will save a good deal of time as everyone involved will understand the process.
- We need access to the courtroom 20 minutes before commencement of the proceeding so we can set up our equipment.
3) What is it that you need to accomplish?
We need to write clean text with as few mistranslates or untranslates. This can be achieved if we have the
parties adhering to the points in No. 2 above.
4) What are we doing well?
- Generally the clerks are friendly and supportive and make room for us to sit in the clerks’ area.
- We invoice the registry and are generally paid in a timely manner.
5) Are there things we should do more of?
- Sometimes there are two clerks and the space for us to set up is limited. We have to be where we
can best see and hear the proceedings.
- A headset connected to the recorder and microphones would more likely give us the clear audio we
require in order to write well. On Main Street, the judge’s voice is very difficult to hear.
- When we provide remote captioning (i.e. we’re not in the courtroom but in our office anywhere in
Canada, listening in to the proceedings in a courtroom anywhere in BC). Vancouver Law Courts IT
courier a computer and cabling to the relevant registry for the clerk to set up in front of the litigant with hearing loss. I have yet to know the set-up. I have found that because the clerks are too busy and this is not something they’re used to, they don’t call us in good time to properly test the audio. Consequently the audio has always been substandard. In addition, we don’t know who is speaking. This remote service is a fantastic saving for the Ministry of Justice and the taxpayer since there are no flight, hotel, nor per-diem costs to fly us there. But as it is, in my opinion, justice is not being well served if we can’t hear properly.
6) What areas could use improvement? What kinds of improvement would you suggest?
Because Accurate Realtime is the first listing under “Interpreters,” registries invariably calls us to provide sign language. I kept explaining the difference, registry by registry. I have prepared edits for the Ministry web site as far as the difference between sign language for culturally Deaf people and our CART captioning for people who do not sign, are hard of hearing, but are oral. The Ministry personnel were interested in our edits. This was to be sent in the summer, but I kept editing it to a point that I think it’s ready to be submitted.
7) Are there things we should stop doing? Please explain.
- The clerks should use quiet keyboards.
- When handwriting, they should use a pad that absorbs the sound of their writing. When I used to
transcribe court materials, this was often extremely annoying. It’s distracting trying to hear intently and capture every word with this irritant so close by.
8) If we were to change the way we deliver services, what changes would you recommend, if any?
- Our task and goal is to provide communication access for people who can’t hear well. Ironically,
sometimes a person with normal hearing experiences difficulties, particularly in old courtrooms that
haven’t been acoustically treated.
- The external public address system into the courtroom can be really loud and drown out the
proceedings.
- Why not adopt lapel mikes and amplification systems such as soundfield systems.
- Fine-tune remote interpreting services. You already have video for in-custody hearings. That
technology might have something that can be incorporated into remote interpreting services from us.
- Please provide proper steno chairs with no arms. It’s so difficult to concentrate when we’re
uncomfortable.
Submitted by
Catherine Siegler, RCR (BC), RPR, CRR, CRC
President, ACCURATE REALTIME INC.
Tel: 604-685-6050
www.accuraterealtime.com