A transcript is a
written record of spoken language. In
court
A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...
proceedings, a transcript is usually a record of all decisions of the
judge
A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
, and the spoken
arguments
An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persua ...
by the
litigants'
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters.
The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...
s. A related term used in the United States is
docket, not a full transcript.
A transcript is expected to be an exact and unedited record of every spoken word, with each speaker indicated. Such a record was originally made by court
stenographers who used a form of
shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to Cursive, longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Gr ...
abbreviation to write as quickly as people spoke. Today, most
court reporter
A court reporter, court stenographer, or shorthand reporter is a person whose occupation is to capture the live testimony in proceedings using a stenographic machine or a stenomask, thereby transforming the proceedings into an official certif ...
s use a
specialized machine with a
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
key system, typing a key or key combination for every sound a person utters.
Many courts worldwide have now begun to use
digital recording
In digital recording, an audio signal, audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or Color, chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is s ...
systems. The recordings are archived and are sent to court reporters or
transcribers only when a transcript is requested. Some court systems have also explored using artificial intelligence (AI) to produce court transcripts.
Transcripts may be available publicly or to a restricted group of persons; judges can restrict transcript access if a given transcript contains sensitive data.
Types
A transcript is also any written record of a speech, debate or discussion.
Rush transcripts are transcript requests that can be processed and mailed, or picked up, within short time of the request (usually 24 hours or less), provided there are no extenuating circumstances (such as unpaid bills). These expedited transcripts normally cost more than regular transcripts.
Check against delivery
Sometimes, the first page of a transcript will have the words "''Check Against Delivery''" stamped across it, which means that the transcript is not the legal representation of the speech, but rather only the audio delivery is regarded as the official record. This is better explained in the French version of the message – ''Seul le texte prononcé fait foi'', literally "Only the spoken text is faithful".
Conversely, it may be that the actual given speech differs from the way the speaker intended, or that it contains extra information that is not pertinent to the central points of the speech and that the speaker does not want to be left as a permanent record.
Speech by President Barroso at the University of Cape Town
''(Example of a transcript with the "Check Against Delivery" stamp)'', Europa.EU, 19 Jul 2013. Retrieved 24 Jul 2013.
See also
* Rough ASCII
* Certificate of disposition
* Deposition (law)
A deposition in the law of the United States, or examination for discovery in the law of Canada, involves the taking of sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that may be reduced to a written transcript for later use in court or for disco ...
* Discovery (law)
Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a phase of pretrial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain Evidence (law), evidence from other parties. This is by means of methods of dis ...
* Transcription (linguistics)
In linguistics, transcription is the systematic representation of spoken language in written form. The source can either be utterances (''speech'' or ''sign language'') or preexisting text in another writing system
A writing system compris ...
* Minutes
Minutes, also known as minutes of meeting, protocols or, informally, notes, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting and may include a list of attendees, a statement of the activit ...
* Witness
In law, a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know.
A witness might be compelled to provide testimony in court, before a grand jur ...
References
{{reflist
Court reporting
Legal documents