Legal Videography - Required Certification?

In the July/August edition of the JCR, a roundtable discussion between 6 CLVS community members was published. They discussed elements of their work as well as issues facing the videography profession. One of the topics discussed was the issue of states requiring videographer certification. Their responses appear below.

Do you think that states should start requiring that all depositions must be produced by certified legal videographers?

Gary Blando: Yes. With certified videographers, the lawyers and the people involved in legal matters can be assured that the videographers have at least met some minimum standards and know the importance of doing what is required regarding state and federal rules. This certification is going to be a hard one to sell because too many law firms are more concerned with the price than the quality of the product and will still use uncertified people.

Esrom Jayasinghe: We need to work past the short-sightedness of the higher cost of working with certified videographers. There is a benefit to have one body create a standard for the keepers of the record. If editing a tape can be construed as altering the record, then digital files can do that and more. One could drop a letter in the audio track of a deposition to change the meaning of a sentence. Currently the discovery code in many states does not address these issues. Reporters working in states requiring certification will not cross certain lines because of their training and the fear of losing their certifications.

Tom Liebmann: Oh what a dream come true this would be! Certainly from a business standpoint, requiring certification would boost any CLVS’s workload. Here in the greater Philadelphia region, for example, there are only a few CLVSs, plus a handful of videographers certified by the American Guild. That’s the good news. The bad news is: There are so few because the attorneys do not care. Before certification becomes required, it is necessary to make attorneys aware of what certification means.

Michael Bailey: I don’t think states will just out of the blue require certification, and I’m not sure court reporting associations are going to drop their own legislative efforts in order to help videographers get this type of legislation or supreme court rule enacted. How do we go about accomplishing such a task? As much as I would like to think that state court reporting associations would help with this endeavor, I just don’t believe that is going to happen. I think we should first identify who is offering certification programs and get all of those entities together to discuss a legislative approach. An effort like this would have to embrace the philosophy that certification is a benefit to the judiciary systems in every state and thereby helps protect the public. It must also be done in a fashion that does not alienate our court reporter associations. This needs more thought by me, but right now I’m thinking that if NCRA along with other entities that have certification programs could come up with a model approach to help guide this type of legislative effort that might be a good start, if we are really serious about making this happen.
Of course, getting states to require certification would also put videographers into a higher category of job classification, I would think, and would undoubtedly pave the way for requiring CEUs in the future, which would also put us in a higher job classification. I would love to see more input by our membership on this topic. It’s a tough nut to crack.

Debbie Kriegshauser: Well, that would be a super idea! I know I can say that I have worked with videographers who are your typical home video producers and nothing more. It’s sad when a videographer is not familiar with the local state or even Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for that matter. A legal videographer who does not know how to be professional and have some sense of basic standards can actually hurt an attorney’s case in the long run. I have seen videographers come through the federal courtroom who have been belittled by the judges in a very humiliating and demeaning manner. I have seen videographers in the courtroom who are very inappropriately dressed. All of these concerns are addressed through the CLVS seminar program and provide a fledgling videographer a better knowledge base of what critical elements they need to know. Are they providing the necessary playback monitors for the courtroom playbacks? Required state certification would ensure the attorneys utilizing the videotaped and trial presentation products produced by a legal videographer that they are working with someone who really knows what they’re doing and knows how to be a professional in all aspects of the legal video arena. Think of all the job classifications that require state certifications. Now imagine using someone in that field who was not licensed and may have just trained themselves through self-study or absolutely no training at all.

Joe Cerda: That would be great! I try to only hire CLVS videographers because I agree with their ethics and standards. I also tell my videographers I hire that the CLVS is a great guideline to follow that has been tried and tested over many years. It is difficult to find people who agree, but those who do find themselves with an advantage in every deposition situation.

The JCR thanks the CLVS Council members who participated in this discussion. For the complete roundtable discussion, please download the July/August issue of the JCR on the members-only Web site. If you have any comments, please send them to jcrfeedback@ncrahq.org.

About the Roundtable Participants

Michael A. Bailey, RPR, CLVS
Mike has been reporting 34 years. He started out freelancing in 1974 in Tulsa, Okla. He worked for the District Courts of Oklahoma from 1978 until 1981, covering criminal, juvenile, and civil dockets. He returned to freelancing in 1981 and started his own firm, Bailey Reporting & Video, Inc. in 1983. He is the past chair of NCRA’s CLVS Committee, on which he served for eight years.

Gary Blando, RPR, CLVS
Co-owner of Argen-Blando Reporters, Gary is a former CLVS Council member and was instrumental in the development of the CLVS Program. He currently resides in Longmont, Colorado where he is enjoying partially retired life.

Joe Cerda, CLVS
Originally from Houston, Texas, Joe Cerda began his career in the legal field in 1998 at Houston Reporting and Video, where he held the position of Legal Video Specialist and Trial Editor. In 2003, he was recruited by HG Litigation Services (then known as Henjum Goucher), a small Dallas, Texas, court reporting agency. Joe currently serves as the company’s Multimedia Litigation & Support Manager, where he stays at the forefront of legal technology. 

Esrom Jayasinghe, CLVS
Esrom Jayasinghe graduated from California State University Northridge as a Radio Television Major with a Media Management emphasis. His work experience has included gathering news for a Spanish language station in Los Angeles. He also worked for Valley Cable and then for Time Warner Cable. He has owned Verbatim Video in Los Angelos since 1990 and has been working in the legal video field since 1987.

Deborah A. Kriegshauser, RMR, CRR, CLVS
Debbie Kriegshauser worked as a freelance court reporter for 25 years for Kriegshauser Reporting & Video in St. Louis, Mo., before becoming a full-time official reporter with the U.S. District Court in St. Louis. Debbie has been very active with the Missouri and Illinois Court Reporters Associations. She is the current chair of the CLVS Council.

Thomas Liebmann, CLVS
Tom Liebmann has a degree in journalism from the University of Florida but left the newspaper business in 1988 to enter the realm of legal video. Since becoming a Certified Legal Video Specialist in 1989, his work has been used in court cases on all levels of the judicial system, and his business, Legal Media, has helped establish a standard for the profession in the greater Philadelphia region.