You Don’t Get One Automatically in Civil Cases

Video Transcribed: Let’s talk about court reporters, guys. My name is Brian L. Jackson. I am a Tulsa dads rights attorney, and I would like to talk to you guys today about a court reporter in the context of your family law case.

The first thing to understand is you don’t get one automatically in civil cases of any kind, and that includes family law cases. You do not automatically get a court reporter.

What the court reporter basically does is they’re the person that’s sitting at the front of the courtroom doing all the typing. They’re there to write down everything everyone says. In the criminal context, it’s always done on the record.

You don’t have to pay for the court reporter. They’re there automatically because it’s criminal court. But the family court’s a different matter. You don’t get a court reporter automatically for family court proceedings.

You have to pay for them. The value of having the court reporter is if for some reason you need to reference back to what was said in court, whether it’s for an appeal, whether it’s for a motion to settle journal entry or some other proceeding where you need to know down to the letter what was said in court, that record is important.

You will not get one automatically in family court because it’s not an automatic right like it is in criminal court. It’s an option that’s available to you, but it’s not an automatic right.

If you ever want to test this idea, go to the protective order docket and just sit in and see how many of those cases are tried without a court reporter taking notes, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you have a question about father’s rights in Tulsa, then you should go to dads.law.