The Court Reporter Fair Labor Amendments Act of 1995 created an exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act for official court reporters for time spent on transcription preparation. Under this law, time spent by official court reporters preparing transcripts for a per-page fee during off-hours is not considered hours worked for the court. Transcript preparation time is exempt from FLSA provisions as long as the reporter is paid a per-page fee for preparing the transcript and the time used to prepare the transcript is outside the hours for which the court requires the court reporter's attendance.
With the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the courts were required to pay all public employees (including court reporters) overtime for any work performed over 40 hours. The hours that court reporters spent preparing transcripts were included in this time.
NCRA was concerned that court reporters could lose their transcript fees or their jobs as courts struggled to comply with FLSA requirements.
In 1995, NCRA worked with Senator Larry Pressler and Congressman Harris Fawell to introduce S. 190 and H.R. 1225, respectively. Both the House and Senate unanimously passed the Court Reporters Fair Labor Amendments Act of 1995. President Clinton signed the bill into law on September 6, 1995.
This legislation states that the time a court reporter spends preparing transcripts will not be considered in the calculation for overtime pay if the court reporter is paid at a per-page rate. If a court reporter works over 40 hours in the courtroom recording court proceedings and reading back testimony, then the court reporter should receive overtime pay.