Aspiring Court Reporters Wait as California Courts Struggle (1)

Vanessa Huerta has spent over a decade working to become a court reporter in California, a state that desperately needs her services. But she isn’t a court reporter yet.

Instead, Huerta and many other students are stuck in a system of trying and failing to fill this well-paying, much-needed role of creating and protecting verbatim records of court proceedings.

An eye-popping $120,000 starting salary lures many into court reporter training programs. That figure has been increased in recent years, as state courts struggle to hire and retain court reporters.

About one quarter of Los Angeles Superior Court reporter positions are ...