In recent years, the legal industry has made real progress toward addressing the burnout rates, substance abuse issues and relentless demands on their time that plague the mental health of attorneys. It's time that court reporters—who face their own distinct set of job-related mental health challenges—receive the same attention.
With a 95% accuracy standard, perfection is the floor, not the ceiling, for court reporters. A single misheard medication name, legal standard, or key proper noun can result in a life-altering decision in a case.
That responsibility carries a weight that isn’t always visible. A court reporter isn't just transcribing, they're tracking spoken language, translating through muscle memory, monitoring their feed, and flagging ambiguities, all in real time, all simultaneously, without breaking the record. That work is not for the faint of heart.
The job doesn’t end when the deposition or court session does, either. Rush orders, same-day transcripts, and tight certification windows mean that an eight-hour deposition day can extend well into the evening. Deadline pressure compounds everything.
Attorneys are intimately familiar with the contents of their case files before they walk in the courtroom. They've reviewed the evidence. They've had time to build professional distance.
Court reporters often walk into a deposition with no advance knowledge of what's coming and spend hours transcribing graphic testimony about a child homicide, a sexual assault, or a catastrophic medical error. They have to remain neutral, present, and accurate throughout. There's no stepping out mid-testimony to process the information.
Vicarious trauma, or secondary traumatic stress, is a well-documented phenomenon in which repeated exposure to others' traumatic experiences produces trauma-like symptoms, including hypervigilance, emotional numbness, and intrusive thoughts in the witness or listener. It's been studied in social workers, therapists, journalists, and emergency responders. Court reporters belong on that list.
Katie Young, Assistant Director of Florida Bar's Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism, writes for JCR, “Court reporters play a critical role in judicial proceedings as they impartially prepare verbatim the official record transcript. Having to ensure they have every word exact, court reporters are forced to not only listen to traumatizing cases once but also endure the secondhand suffering over and over.”
The risk compounds over time. A court reporter with two decades in criminal court has absorbed thousands of hours of testimony. Young continues, “If we ignore the potential signs of vicarious trauma for too long, they can manifest into anxiety, depression, or even PTSD.”
Burnout in court reporting looks like burnout anywhere: exhaustion, cynicism, declining performance. But it also takes shapes specific to the profession: increased transcription errors, repetitive strain, hearing fatigue, difficulty disengaging. For reporters handling traumatic content regularly, the symptoms of vicarious trauma and burnout can compound each other, making both harder to recognize and harder to address.
Court Reporter and Certified Life Balance Coach Jennifer Wielage shares, "As court reporters, we may experience stress, feel overwhelmed, and even burn out both on the job and in our everyday lives."
Professional isolation can also be a compounding factor. A significant portion of court reporters work as independent contractors who lack the support infrastructure that often exists for traditional W2 employees.
The post-pandemic shift to remote proceedings has added volume without adding capacity. More sessions are calendared, often back-to-back on video platforms, without the natural breaks that in-person work once provided. The pace has changed but access to mental health resources hasn’t kept up.
Steno's technology was built to reduce the administrative weight of the job—scheduling, job management, and transcript delivery—so the workday doesn't extend further than it has to. That's a practical contribution, not a complete answer. But we believe the legal system functions better when the professionals at the center of it have what they need to do their jobs sustainably.
The NCRA Mental Health Resources page is worth bookmarking, with professional counseling options, crisis support, and resources for those navigating substance use alongside professional stress.
Other professions with heavy secondhand trauma exposure have developed specific frameworks worth knowing about, even if they weren’t built for court reporters specifically:
Court reporters are essential to the record, and their mental health deserves the same seriousness the industry is extending to attorneys.
What does mental health support look like in your practice? What resources have helped? If you're a court reporter willing to share your experience, either anonymously or on the record, reach out to me at grace.johnston@steno.com.
If you or someone you know is struggling right now, please visit NCRA Mental Health Resources or contact the National Alliance on Mental Health at 800.950.6264.