Atkinson-Baker Court Reporters Celebrates 26 Years
Glendale, CA (PRWEB) July 09, 2014 -- There is a humorous slogan at Atkinson-Baker that “Cheetahs intern here before being turned loose on the Savannah.”
A new lawsuit is filed every 2 seconds of every day in the USA, where there are 1.2 million attorneys and 22,000 court reporters. So there are times when circumstances intrude that force a court reporter to miss a deposition.
When that happens, firms often turn to Atkinson-Baker to handle the problem. It was, after all, the founding principle on which the company was built.
It was 26 years ago when Alan and Sheila delved into managing Sheila’s flourishing court reporting activities. It expanded rapidly from there. There was a shortage of court reporters in those days, and court-reporting firms would network. They would farm out jobs they couldn’t fill. Alan developed the ability to find court reporters at the last minute, and decided to accommodate this extra demand.
Today, Atkinson-Baker has more than 170 employees and, with the help of internally created, proprietary software, tracks and schedules 1,100 court reporters every week.
The public has an image of court reporters sitting primly in a lawyer’s conference room or in a courtroom quietly recording what is being said. And that is what they do. “But sometimes the obstacles we have to overcome to get them there remind us of those harrowing days of the Pony Express.”
There was the deposition at “The top of the world.” It was a large case involving one of the global oil giants in Barrow, Alaska. Barrow sits on the northern-most boundary of Alaska, on the shores of the Artic Ocean, 320 miles North of the Arctic Circle.
Atkinson-Baker flew an adventurous CR from the lower 48 into the Wiley Post – Will Rogers memorial airport in Barrow. While the airport name alone might give some pause, the court reporter, long johns in tow, spent two bone-chilling days facilitating depositions of two professionals to the great delight of the client.
In another case: a law firm in Las Vegas was conducting depositions of multiple deponents in their offices in Las Vegas. It was a large case and attorneys had flown in from around the country.
The conference room looked like a New York subway car at rush hour. Everyone was there ready to go; everyone, that is except the stenographer, who had not shown up. The company burned phone, email and text lines to find her – no joy. They called Atkinson-Baker, who had a court reporter in the conference room in 15 minutes.
“I built a reputation of taking on ‘impossible’ assignments and finding a court reporter to fill the job no matter where or how short the notice was,” Alan says. “It’s a service we still uphold today and our reputation is built on it.”
From Argentina to Australia; India to Israel; Taiwan to Thailand and all across the legal landscape of America, Atkinson-Baker court reporters overcome every obstacle they need to in order to bring their own brand of speed and accuracy to legal systems, both foreign and domestic.
Sherise Bright, Atkinson-Baker, Inc., http://www.depo.com, +1 (818) 245-3239, [email protected]
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