HR0041 104TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0041 LRB104 06476 LAW 16512 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Illinois Court Reporters Association (ILCRA) is the sole statewide association of freelance and official court reporters in Illinois, with professional membership exclusively comprised of licensed certified shorthand reporters (CSRs), individuals who are highly trained and skilled and ethically bound to write in real time each word spoken at hearings, trials, arbitrations, and depositions; and

WHEREAS, Illinois licensed CSRs, also known as stenographers, are the only professionals in Illinois for whom the title "court reporter" is reserved by State statute; and

WHEREAS, Court reporters write shorthand at 225 words per minute, and often much faster, to create the verbatim record upon which the courts and counsel rely as the gold standard of transcripts of proceedings and from which discrete case law and citations derive; and

WHEREAS, Court reporters write each word spoken at legal proceedings in Illinois using phonetic alphabetic keyboards on stenographic machines that store the shorthand verbatim notes on redundant electronic text backup so that the courts, counsel, litigants, and defendants can rest assured that the accurate, full record of proceedings is safe and secure not only for transcript production but also from the dangers of the testimony being altered, publicly disseminated, or entirely lost through the vulnerabilities of unlicensed audio recorder operators who do not possess the inimitable skills of CSRs; and

WHEREAS, Illinois shorthand reporters and real-time captioners provide Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) by captioning for attorneys, litigants, defendants, jurors, and the public at legal proceedings, business meetings, educational classes and lectures, sporting events, and arts performances for many Illinoisans who are deaf or hard of hearing, who have auditory processing disabilities, or for whom English is not their first language; and

WHEREAS, Stenographers and captioners produce a reliably accurate and complete record of each spoken word and deserve the public's confidence earned by the court reporters' position of neutrality and adherence to confidentiality and ethics guidelines necessitated by the CSRs' role as an officer of the court; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we declare February 1 through February 8, 2025 as Court Reporting and Captioning Week in the State of Illinois; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the Illinois Court Reporters Association as a symbol of our respect and esteem.