Neutrality.
For court reporters, it is the profession’s most important watchword. It is so important, in fact, that the first tenant of the National Court Reporters Association’s (NCRA) Code of Professional Ethics deals directly with neutrality.
1. Be fair and impartial toward each participant in all aspects of reported proceedings, and always offer to provide comparable services to all parties in a proceeding.
In real-world practice, this rule most often comes into play in the form of discounts and incentives that court reporting services sometimes offer. Attorneys, paralegals and legal secretaries may not spend much time thinking about these inducements, but they should. That 10 percent discount on transcriptions or that $25 gas card for every deposition scheduled can say a lot about the court reporter offering them.
Discounts
By themselves, discounts do not count as unethical behavior. After all, there’s hardly a transaction made today that doesn’t involve a discount – at the grocery store, the gas station, the department store, you name it.
There is an ethical line for discounts, however, and it’s crossed when a court reporter offers them to only one party in a case. By charging one party less than the other, the court reporter is abandoning their neutrality.
For example, it’s not unheard of for some court reporting firms to offer a discount on transcripts to one party in a litigation to secure the work. By itself, that is not an ethical breach. However, if the court reporter does not offer the same discount to other parties in the case, you have to wonder about their pledge of neutrality.
Because of the adversarial aspect of litigation, the court reporter needs to be a neutral party. This neutrality should always extend to pricing. What should an attorney do? Check their receipts and ask if other parties are getting transcription discounts.
Incentives and Gifts
Businesses are always looking for an edge and those in the court reporting profession are no different. While an edge is okay, an unfair advantage – like offering gift cards or other incentives in exchange for bookings – is not.
The NCRA inserted into its code of ethics an explicit prohibition of incentives after a rash of this behavior spread through legal communities in Florida. Not only is the practice unethical because it acts as a form of kickback, but it also comes with serious tax consequences, as those gift cards should be reported as income.
Is your court reporter offering incentives to your legal staff? If so, it calls into question not only their judgement, but their neutrality as an impartial officer of the court.
At Mobley Reporting, we take to heart our profession’s ethical standards, and we’ve been doing so for more than 35 years. To learn more about Mobley Reporting’s commitment to professionalism and our many court reporting services available in the Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, Ohio metro regions, contact us for more information.