Professional Ethics, Confidentiality, and Best Practices
The core duties
Impartiality, accuracy, and completeness define the role. The reporter produces the official record for all parties equally, never favoring the side that retained the reporter or the side that is friendlier in the hallway. No ex parte coaching, no summarizing, no softening a witness's grammar, no deleting an embarrassing aside that was spoken on the record. Competence is an ethical duty too: continuing education, honest acknowledgment of equipment limits, and declining work you cannot handle competently.
Confidentiality and protected material
Sealed and expunged records, grand jury proceedings, juror identifying information, minors, and victims of sensitive crimes carry statutory protections, as do health information and settlement discussions the court has closed. Know your jurisdiction's retention and destruction schedule and your certifying body's rules on releasing copies: verify who is entitled before producing anything, and log every distribution.
Modern pressure points
The most common ethics question is the request to "clean up" or "leave out" a passage. You cannot; the transcript is verbatim, and only a court order changes what is filed. Automated speech recognition is a tool, not an author: unverified machine output that invents words is a falsification of the record. Only the reporter who made the record can certify it, and corrections flow through the errata or court-approved amendment process, never through quiet edits.
Rule of thumb: if it was said on the record, it goes in the record. The only exceptions are what the judge orders off the record and what the law seals.
Worked example: counsel calls and asks you to omit a sidebar the judge forgot to seal. You decline, note the request in your file, and let the court decide any sealing question.