Shorthand in Court

This is what good friend Rod Suthers proudly said to me when he recently handed me this old machine he bought from a second hand shop 25 years ago. As I undid the box and opened the lid, I observed what looked like a small typewriter, just with less keys.

He went onto tell me that it was actually a “stenotype” machine which was previously used by shorthand recorders during court cases to record proceedings before the introduction of digital recorders and computers.

I opened the book to find a “lesson” with an unusual code like a script of jumbled letters, with letters missing. I’ve subsequently come to learn that operators of these types of machines would press multiple keys at the same time to record the words and phrases in letter combinations, making this a quick way to transcribe oral submissions or testimony in Court. I have also come to learn that operators on these machines could record as many as 300 words per minute, five times that of a proficient modern typist averaging about 60 words per minute on a computer.

The book has a year of 1953 recorded on the inside cover. There are certain visual features to this machine which are similar to the vintage dictation and transcription machines already in my office foyer. Gold stencilling and black duco included.

I have personally read many transcripts of court proceedings over the years. In family law or criminal law trials, they can run into the hundreds of pages. In the law business, everything has to be 100% correct, 100% of the time. The mind boggles at how skilled the short hand recorders who operated these machines must have been using a system and machine which did not contain all of the letters of the alphabet to quickly and accurately record everything that was being said in the proceeding.

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