A Court Reporter Can Protect Your Case
Video Transcribed: Do I need a court reporter for my Oklahoma hearing? I’m Oklahoma attorney, James Wirth. We’re talking about court reporters in Oklahoma. The question is, do I need one?
So first off, the general rule is going to be yes, and you don’t automatically get a court reporter depending on the type of case it is. If it is a civil case and you want a court reporter, it’s incumbent upon you to make the request for one and to pay the fee for one.
So do you want to pay that fee? It’s usually 20 bucks, I believe. Then the court will call for the reporter to be there to take everything down. If you don’t do that, you’ve essentially waived that right to have a court reporter and have everything taken down, and there is not a transcript of the record.
So when do you need a transcript of the record? Well, first and foremost, you need a transcript if you ever plan to potentially appeal the decision. If there is a ruling that is made that you disagree with, you’re going to need that record in order to demonstrate to the appellate court, because the burden is on you when you do the appeal to demonstrate that something was done improperly. You’re going to need the transcript to show that.
So if there’s any potential that this is something that’s serious enough that you may want to appeal, then you’re definitely going to want to have a transcript.
Also, I find sometimes hearings become a little too informal if you don’t have a court reporter present. So in order to keep the judge and everyone more formal in order to properly handle objections and those types of things, it’s nice to have a court reporter present for that.
So times when you don’t need a court reporter, if it’s something small in nature where you would never order the transcript, there’s nothing that’s going to happen in the case after that where you may want people down on the record. Because one other example where you may want one is in a family law case where you’re putting on a temporary order hearing.
Temporary orders are generally not appealable, so you don’t necessarily need the transcript to appeal it, but temporary orders also mean it’s not a final order so there’s going to be a subsequent order that could happen after a final trial.
So if you’re going to a final trial, you may want the transcript from the temporary order hearing in order to know and hold people to what their testimony was previously or so you can have that to show based on new information that they lied at the temporary order hearing and perjured themselves. So that is another reason to have a court reporter.
So the general rule is, do have a court reporter, do have everything taken down on the record. If you’ve got any questions about that or other legal questions in Oklahoma though, don’t take this general advice, schedule an appointment with an attorney to speak confidentially by going online to makelaweasy.com.
