Follow the Leader

Provided by Matthew Spievak, Sarnoff Court Reporters, VP/GM Northern Region.  Matt is a member of NorCalPROS

There are a few childhood games that I still remember vividly. I loved Duck, Duck, Goose, Telephone and Follow The Leader. They all had an element of danger in them and the ability to really get a little kid's heart pumping. Duck, Duck, Goose because there was this anticipation in both being tagged as the "goose" and having to give chase around the circle, hoping to beat the tagger back to your seat. I never won, so my only hope was not to get tagged. Telephone because I lived in fear of being the one that screwed up the phrase that was being passed. That fear was born from an embarrassing revelation that came in first grade … the one time I recall being the leader was on the playground in second grade when someone got hurt. I thought it was a brilliant idea to lead my little troop up and over the teeter-totter. The third person in line pounced the teetertotter down to the ground and Kim Haggie, the fourth person in line, took that wooden playground apparatus on the chin, causing her to bleed profusely, which earned her a few stitches and me a chair in the principal's office.

So at the ripe old age of eight, I learned one of life's important lessons: Being a follower had the potential for serious danger, and that being a leader carried with it great responsibility! And so I learned to take being a leader much more seriously because you don't want the person behind you to suffer permanent scaring. However, as careful a leader as one tries to be, there's always that unanticipated obstacle. Job sharing in the world of court reporting is one such occasion where the leader must take great care in passing on the right information . . . from correct spellings of attorneys', witnesses' and veniremen's names, to case cites and proper seating charts. Those are but a few tidbits of information we reporters share on our "dope sheets" and they have to be right. Otherwise, we perpetuate A BIG MESS! An entire trial can be rifled with misspellings if you bat lead-off and pass on misspellings, information that becomes part of a permanent record. History, if you will, bad history.

I hope that I've been a good lead reporter over the years when it comes to information sharing, mindful of what it's like to be the person later down the line who has received counsel's embarrassing corrections. When you're a team player, you take it on the chin and quietly make the correction, careful not to throw any other team member under the bus because of that saying: "There but for the grace of God go I." But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, somebody follows in the lead reporter's footsteps because they [mistakenly] think the reporter in front of them knows more.

I'm going to claim a stomach flu coupled with delirious fever for a court mishap four years ago. That's because it's completely true. I was reporting a one-day bench trial when, as luck would have it, I had to abruptly interrupt a witness on the stand due to an unavoidable personal need. One hand went up to catch the Court's attention, as I used the other hand to cover my mouth and sprint to the jury room's washroom in the Daley Center.

As every reporter who has had the great good pleasure of reporting in Cook County's downtown courthouse would attest, the Daley Center, the acoustics stink. We reporters have a killer time trying to make a clean record when clerks stamp docket filings while proceedings are underway, with mumbling witnesses and counsel rapid firing their questions in a room where even the loudest voices seem to drop into a dead zone. Why is it then that the acoustics are crystal clear in the jury room's washroom so that the sound of a court reporter retching from stomach flu are unmistakable? Murphy's Law, I guess.

When I returned to the courtroom from my wretched retching experience that was unfortunately in earshot of the entire courtroom, it wasn't sympathy that I garnered from my unintended captive audience, but looks of horror on the collective faces of counsel...and disdain from an annoyed judge. Knowing that I was going to experience round two in short order, I called my office for backup before I attempted to slither back into my seat below the witness box and the bench.

Then came a humiliating request from the Court that caused a chain of events that I could not anticipate. The judge, shooing me with a backhanded waving motion, indicated to me to relocate my chair away from the bench and the witness box -a little more . . . keep going...right there -which landed me about 10 feet away from the bench and the witness box and put me basically smack dab in the middle of the courtroom, somewhere between counsel's podium and the bench! I felt like I was sitting in a motorless dingy in the middle of the ocean with steamers going by, their crew peering over the edge and laughing at me as I bounced helplessly in the waves. Thankfully, there was no jury to witness the excruciating little exercise. The only thing that I was missing was a dunce cap!

Within five minutes, a janitor appeared to disinfect the bathroom walls in the jury room. (Yeah, I did. Shut up. Until it happens to you, you have no idea!) Another 10 minutes passed before an angel of mercy appeared. No, I wasn't hallucinating. The angel that appeared was in the form of a relief reporter.

The judge was kind enough -or, more truthfully, wanted me and my vidocci to scram in short order -to break and allow a reporter switch. Not wanting to breathe on my angel of mercy, I made my hasty departure so proceedings could resume. So the new reporter took my seat IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COURTROOM, unaware that I had been banished to this bizarre location by the judge, a result of my little mishap.

A few days later when I returned to work, the reporter who relieved me was eager to learn what the value was in sitting in the middle of the courtroom for trial. She told me she had never seen such a seating arrangement for a reporter but didn't question it because it was arranged by the all-knowing Margie Kruse!!! O-M-G! Flashback to second grade. This time, my friend who relieved me was the one that got whacked on the chin by the teetertotter! But instead of stitches on the chin, we shared a gut-busting laugh over it!

What about you, Ms. Reporter? Have you ever played Follow The Leader to your own detriment? How'd that work out for you?