court reporter

On this week’s Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick was joined by Linda Greenhouse, the veteran New York Times Supreme Court reporter, opinion columnist, and author of Justice on the Brink: A Requiem for the Supreme Court, to unpack what this new reporting tells us about the chief justice of the United States, his agenda, and what it means for the flotilla of election cases inevitably headed the high court’s way in the coming weeks.

In an attempt to combat the disproportionate harm that a statewide court reporter shortage is having on low-income litigants, Los Angeles County’s top judge cleared the way Thursday for electronic recording devices to be used in certain family, probate and civil proceedings for the first time.

The decision, which applies only to proceedings where a court reporter is unavailable to transcribe the verbatim record, is a surprising escalation in a years-long battle among court officials, state lawmakers and unionized labor leaders over what to do about a chronic shortage of court reporters statewide.

County court reporter and president of the Los Angeles County Court Reporters Assn., said in an interview with The Times that the order came as a surprise to her organization — and will be reviewed closely before the group decides on next steps or legal options.

Shanna Gray, also a working county court reporter and the association’s vice president, noted that state lawmakers have already rejected proposed legislation that would have made similar changes.