In a move hailed by legal advocates of low-income litigants, the California Supreme Court last week agreed to hear a case on whether to allow electronic recording in family court hearings.
“We are incredibly grateful the Supreme Court has agreed to consider our case addressing trial courts’ inability to provide a verbatim record of what happens in thousands of court hearings every day, resulting in devastating effects to low-income litigants, including survivors of domestic abuse,” Jennafer Wagner, director of programs at the Family Violence Appellate Project, wrote in an email to the San Francisco Public Press.
The organization, along with Community Legal Aid SoCal and Bay Area Legal Aid, sought the high court’s help last December. Though only four trial courts have been named as petitioners in the lawsuit — those for Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Contra Costa and San Diego counties — if the legal aid groups win, the Supreme Court’s decision will provide guidance to all 58 California trial courts, Wagner said.
The state judiciary is statutorily required to provide court reporters in felony criminal, juvenile justice and dependency cases, but not in civil, family, probate, misdemeanor criminal or traffic law cases.
Court reporters create transcripts that are verbatim records of what happens in court.
Over the years, a number of California lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully to fix the court transcript gap through legislation that would lift the state’s ban on electronic recording in civil and family law hearings when court reporters are not available.
For decades, the shortage of court reporters has been worsening in California and many other states because fewer people are enrolling in court reporter schools and the field has a high rate of attrition. Some of those states, however, allow electronic recording in their trial courts.
Sen. Susan Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, in 2024 tried to change a state bill that would have lifted the ban on electronic recording of hearings in family court. The day before the bill’s scheduled Senate hearing, Anne-Christine Massullo, San Francisco Superior Court’s presiding judge, endorsed it, emphasizing its “economic fairness.”
“It is essential to find a remedy to close this chasm of injustice that fails litigants who cannot afford to hire their own court reporter, while favoring others with the financial means to pay a court reporter to take a verbatim record of their day in court,” she said at the time. It costs about $3,300 per day to hire a private court reporter, according to women’s rights advocates.
Once again, pushback from unions representing California court reporters kept that from happening.
Defying the state ban on electronic recording, last September, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge declared that other judges may order the use of electronic recording in civil cases when no court reporters are available and where a report is necessary for a possible appeal. Last month, the Santa Clara County Court issued a similar order countering the state ban.
Wagner noted that the Supreme Court’s willingness to hear the lawsuit signals the court’s recognition of low-income litigants’ constitutional rights.
“Each day, thousands of hearings happen, and there is no verbatim record of what occurred,” she wrote in an email to the Public Press. “This has real life repercussions.”
She said her organization has had to turn away dozens of domestic violence survivors seeking legal help because they didn’t have verbatim records of their hearings.
“These individuals could have had strong grounds to appeal incorrect trial court rulings, but the lack of a verbatim record makes it virtually impossible to win an appeal,” Wagner said.
