NY Divorce Courts Operate in the Stone Age of the Legal Industry – Court Reporters

20Oct/110

NY Divorce Courts Operate in the Stone Age of the Legal Industry – Court Reporters

One of the limiting factors in appeal is the ridiculous cost of court transcripts in New York Divorce Courts. After the sorry excuse of a court room that is New York Supreme Court Matrimony Part where due process is randomly ignored or followed, but generally pissed on, comes the archaic Appeals Court of New York. The Appeals Court is an intimidating place where you are arguing your measly divorce issues alongside Citibank, Goldman and other mega-clients. Whether you are challenging serious legal issues or being pillaged by divorce attorneys the same requirements apply - 9 PRINTED copies of the ENTIRE case record, which is WAY more than a transcript. Simply copying the complete case record 9 times can cost thousands of dollars and rest assured, no one probably reads it in its entirety, but the burden is on the one filing the appeal to produce the monstrosity.

The first step is to get the court transcript, however, and after seeing this dinosaur system it would be laughable, if it wasn't so damaging to families. Court reporters in NY are amongst the last in the nation to do things the old fashioned way with mysterious typing boxes that then must be transcribed into readable pages. My request to the court reporter for transcripts came back with a cost of $6 per page, and there were about 500 pages to transcribe, so about $3,000. I have sent only $500 to the court reporter back in March but now in October as the appeal window has closed, I still don't have one single page of transcript nor do I have my five hundred bucks. The chick took the money and did absolutely nothing, zippo nada. She moaned that she needs more money but grudgingly agreed to do the first day of my 'trial' play acting.

Even though I have run out of time for the appeal, largely due to this idiot court reporter not responding and charging exorbitant fees, I am demanding that she deliver at least one day of the trial or send the money back. Believe it or not, after sitting on her ass and doing nothing for 7 months, SHE STILL NEEDS TWO MORE WEEKS to type about 30 pages.

I'm sure if I had an attorney ask it would've been different but this is one case where I can't wait for automation to put her out of work. There is no reason that NY families and children should be paying for antiquated courtroom procedures when virtually every state in the US has done away with these arcane beasts. Imagine losing your kids and all your assets and then being trapped in an appeal processor waiting for this old maid to get out the selectric and bang out a few pages.

Un f'ing believable but welcome to NY Divorce!