Two organizations in the Bay Area that ensure the well-being of low-income survivors of domestic violence have sued four trial courts to resolve the statewide court reporter shortage, which they say is impairing “equal access to justice.”
Court reporters provide a verbatim transcript of court proceedings. The shortage, which has gone unresolved for decades, has now reached a tipping point: more than a million hearings and trials went without a court transcript during the year ending in March 2024. That’s according to the Dec. 4 lawsuit filed in the California Supreme Court by the Family Violence Appellate Project and Bay Area Legal Aid.
California is among the minority of states that bar video and audio recording in family, civil and probate courtrooms. Because litigants cannot make their own recordings, they depend on court reporters. If successful, the lawsuit would require courts to provide electronic recording to low-income litigants if no court reporter is available.
For a domestic violence survivor, such a record is essential to challenge a ruling that they believe violates their civil rights, advocates say. Lack of a transcript can doom an appeal. Without it, survivors could lose custody of their children, feel compelled to return to an abuser or even become homeless.
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“Thousands of litigants in family law and probate cases leave courtrooms every day without a verbatim record of what transpired,” said Jennafer Wagner, director of programs at the Family Violence Appellate Project. The nonprofit organization helps low-income domestic violence survivors to appeal trial court rulings in California courts.
“Our survivors cannot be helped if they don’t have a record,” Wagner said.
Currently, if no court reporter is provided, litigants must pay for one.
Genevieve Richardson, executive director of Bay Area Legal Aid, a nonprofit that provides free legal services in civil cases to thousands of low-income residents each year, said that far too often “the access to justice comes at a cost: the cost of a private court reporter.”
In California courts, that cost averages $3,300 a day, according to the lawsuit.
Defying the state ban on electronic recording, in September, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued an order 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 that ran against the state ban.
But neither court “went far enough,” said Thao Weldy, development director at the Appellate Project. “The judges are given discretion as to when to allow electronic recording,” she said.
Asked to comment on last week’s lawsuit, David Slayton, the chief officer of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, declined, citing pending litigation. The court is the largest trial court in the nation.
Even though only four counties are named in the lawsuit — Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Contra Costa and San Diego — the state Supreme Court’s decision “will provide appropriate guidance” to all 58 trial courts in the state that are “facing this critical barrier to access justice in California,” the lawsuit says.
The shortage of court reporters has been worsening because fewer people are enrolling in court reporter schools and the field has a high rate of attrition.
The San Francisco Superior Court pays court reporters the highest annual salary of any other county court in the state: $150,000 plus benefits. Court reporters nationally earn an average of $62,000 a year. Even so, as of June, the court had a shortage of 10 reporters, after filling four vacancies since the start of 2024.
For decades now, California lawmakers have been unsuccessful in getting the state to lift its ban on electronic recording in civil and family law hearings. Court reporters’ unions have pushed back on their efforts. A bill introduced in early 2024 by state Sen. Susan Rubio, a democrat from Baldwin Park, did not make it to the California Senate Appropriations Committee because of this opposition.
While the state judiciary is required to provide reporters in felony criminal, juvenile justice and dependency cases, that does not apply for civil, family, probate, misdemeanor criminal and traffic law.
But failing to provide a court reporter can be a violation of a 2018 state Supreme Court decision (Jameson vs. Desta) that entitles certain low-income parties in civil hearings and trials to pro bono court reporters.
The California Lawyers Association has filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting last week’s lawsuit.
The court reporter shortage “has created a system of injustice throughout the state,” the letter said.
