When the Realtime Feed Stops at 10:42
You are reporting a half-day arbitration. The arbitrator and both counsel receive your realtime feed over the hearing room's Wi-Fi. At 10:42 the arbitrator's laptop stops updating, though your machine's screen shows that your writing continues normally. The room's backup audio recorder is running, but its battery indicator has turned amber and you did not bring spares. During the break, counsel asks you to "just email the realtime file" to a paralegal who was not present at the hearing. The arbitration rules require the transcript to be filed with the administrator, and the parties are to obtain copies through the administrator.
1. The realtime feed freezes at 10:42. What do you do in the room, and what do you do about the record?
Read the worked answer
Keep writing. The steno notes are the record; the feed is a convenience layered on top of it. Nothing about the freeze affects the transcript.
Immediate steps:
- Do not stop the machine to troubleshoot. Realtime problems are solved at the next pause, not mid-answer.
- Check your end first: cable or Bluetooth, the connection status in your software, whether the room's network dropped. Most freezes are network or client-side, not writer-side.
- At the next natural break, tell the arbitrator on the record: "The realtime feed dropped at 10:42 and is being restored; the stenographic record is unaffected." Note the start and end times in your job log so the gap is documented if anyone asks later whether testimony was missed.
- Offer a remedy, not an excuse: a re-sync, a direct cable to the arbitrator's laptop, or a printed page after the break.
- If the feed cannot be restored, say so on the record and let the arbitrator decide how to proceed. Do not quietly let people believe they are receiving notes they are not.
The one thing not to do is treat the freeze as a transcription failure. It is not.
2. The backup recorder's battery is low and you have no spares. How does that change your handling of the session and of the transcript that follows?
Read the worked answer
The audio is a backup, not the record - but a backup at amber is a warning about the next hour.
- Preserve what you have. Confirm the existing file is being written and saved periodically; a recorder that dies mid-write can corrupt the whole file.
- Get power at the break: a USB cable to your laptop, a charger from the hearing room, or, if the arbitrator permits, a short recess to find one. Ask on the record so the request is visible and neutral.
- Do not treat the lost audio as a license to reconstruct. If any passage later proves unintelligible in your notes and there is no audio, it stays as "(Inaudible)" - the missing backup is your problem to disclose, not a gap to fill with a guess.
- Disclose if material. If the recorder dies and a passage is genuinely uncertain, tell counsel at the conclusion of the session, on the record, that the audio backup was lost, so they can supplement the record if they wish.
- Follow up in writing with the administrator noting the recorder issue. A short contemporaneous note is far more credible than an explanation offered after a challenge.
The professional point: backup layers protect accuracy, not your convenience, and their failure must be surfaced rather than absorbed.
3. Counsel wants the realtime file emailed to a paralegal who was not present, and also wants the certified transcript sent straight to the parties. How do you handle both requests?
Read the worked answer
Treat them as two separate refusals with two separate reasons.
The realtime file to an absent paralegal:
- Realtime is a service to the people in the room who are participating in the proceeding. Emailing the live feed out extends the audience to someone who was not present and whose role in the case is unverified.
- Confidentiality and any protective order in the arbitration attach to the content, and an arbitration is private by design. A file forwarded once is out of your control.
- The answer: "I can provide the certified transcript through the administrator; I can't distribute the realtime feed to someone who wasn't at the hearing without the arbitrator's direction."
- If the arbitrator directs it on the record, comply and note the direction in your file.
The transcript straight to the parties:
- The rules say file with the administrator, and parties obtain copies through the administrator. Comply with the rules, not with the loudest request in the room.
- Say so once, in writing: "Under the applicable rules, the certified transcript will be filed with the administrator; I'll follow the administrator's direction on distribution."
- Do not let a party's direct payment or convenience override a filing rule. If the administrator later authorizes direct distribution, document the authorization.
In both cases the test is the same: who is entitled to the record, and who decides. It is not the reporter.