Proving Usefulness and Providing Relevant Advances

A few times a year, an article will just fall into my lap. In June, this one arrived from the Delaware Court Reporters Association, who had invited attorney Greg Varallo – yes, of the Varallo court reporting family – to speak at their convention. Neith Ecker, RDR, CRR, DCRA’s current treasurer, had told Greg that, given his background, he could speak about whatever he wanted. He chose to speak about the relevance of court reporting in today’s world. Here is an excerpt:

It is my contention that, in almost every one of those cases, those who embraced relevant advances in technology to deliver their services faster and more effectively not only survived, but in some cases did better than before. Correspondingly, I believe that those who failed to embrace relevant technology suffered, and, in some cases, lost altogether.

Allow me, if I may, to illustrate the point with a few concrete examples. Let’s start with the first incursion of technology into the court reporting world - - the introduction of machine shorthand in the courts. I actually know a little something about this because it was my grandfather, Vincent Varallo, Sr., who, in 1937 was hired by the president judge of the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court as the first machine shorthand reporter in the Philadelphia court system. In order to prove that it worked, granddad was assigned not one but two judges, and reported the proceedings of both for a full year to “prove” that the predecessor of the shorthand machine that you all use every day was actually more useful than taking steno notes by hand.

Greg Varallo's full speech will be published in the September JCR. Watch for it!