He’s a six-time NCRA speed champ; she’s a past NCRA president and the current Executive Director of Project Steno. He’s an RMR; she’s an RDR. They’re both CRRs, Fellows in the Academy of Professional Reporters, and recipients of the coveted Distinguished Service Award. Together, they have a combined 98 years of industry experience. Meet Ed and Nancy Varallo.
To merely say that Covid-19 has added a fresh layer of stress over whatever else we all deal with daily is probably an enormous understatement.
The last couple of years have been hard on all of us. We have all been trying to manage our work, our families, and our lives in a constant state of worry. This goes for everyone – those lucky to have not gotten sick, for those who have battled the illness or frankly for ANYONE who has known ANYONE afflicted by this virus. The effects of this crisis run deep. Deeper than we may even yet realize.
With the lifting of many mandates and rules across the country, many of us have simply decided that we have had enough of worrying. However, is it enough to decide? Does it matter? The infection rates are still high – I have three of my family sick with it right now. The worry is still warranted.
The term ‘selfcare’ has been thrown around a lot but still seems to be connected mostly to spa days and mediation. A nice bath, while relaxing, is probably not going to help you very much as you plunge into the next day of worry, compounded by the previous day of worry.
The theme of this year’s Canadian Mental Health Week is Empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and sadly according to a recent study our empathy for others is at an all time low. As they say, crisis can breed contempt. Out of necessity, we go inward and we tend to focus on our own. The survey conducted by the CMHA found that only 13 per cent of Canadians were feeling empathetic. This is a drop of 10% since the beginning of the pandemic.
This is not hard to understand. It is hard to feel for others when we ourselves are struggling. But empathy does indeed start with us. It must. If we can truly understand and respect what is happening within ourselves, we can indeed see that same struggle within others.
The first thing to remember is, you do not have to do this alone. Due to the pandemic, many of us have felt isolated and cut off from our friends and family, even our neighbours and co-workers. Reach out. Reach out. Reach out.
If you are fortunate enough that your employee benefit plan may have mental health resources available… use them. The CMHA website is filled with valuable resources too, like this Mental Health Meter.
Other resources include:
We are not alone and there is nothing shameful about the challenge of mental health issues. Now, more than ever, be empathetic with yourself – when you take care of yourself first, that care will reflect upon those around you who perhaps are also struggling.
We love getting to know our new teammates from across the country. Dayna is the scheduling associate at Ace Reporting Services in Edmonton, and we asked her to tell us more about herself and her life with Veritext Canada.
Can you tell us what led you to your current role and what you love about working there?
I went to NAIT for the Captioning and Court Reporting program; however, it was not in the cards. The mum of one of my fellow classmates suggested to me that I apply for the job. To assist in my future success, my background also includes eight months as a QB court clerk and ten months as a legal assistant.
I love that moment when a client calls in a panic, and you can come through with a reporter. Knowing that you have just relieved a huge amount of stress — words cannot express how satisfying it is. Above all, I really love working with the reporters. They are the job, and without them I would not have this opportunity.
How do you think this new unified national team will help better service the legal industry across Canada?
Veritext has survived a pandemic and has come out even stronger. Since joining forces with British Columbia, Veritext Canada is now a company that can provide services for any matter, regardless of the province. We have adapted to a situation no one thought would happen in their lifetime. Everyone’s efforts are leading to a seamless experience, whether it be booking a matter or ordering transcripts.
Veritext’s mission and corporate values aim to be respectful, ethical, collaborative, accountable and professional. Can you tell us which of these values resonates most strongly with you and why?
The two values that I see exemplified the most are accountability and collaboration.
We all work together to help each other. It could be from scheduling demands that arise, to training new associates, to finding new ways to do things. If it was not collaborated on, we would not be where we are now.
Speaking from experience, we are accountable to each other and to our clients. Our associates leave no stone unturned. We must work together so we can continue to have happy clients.
Wellness and self-care are important to our team. Do you have a favourite way to recharge or any tips for staying healthy mentally and physically, both at work and at home?
Working from home was a challenge that I did not anticipate for my career, ever. Going from an office every day to working at my kitchen table was not something I had ever considered. I found it is helpful to have a specific workspace where you can close the door at the end of the day and leave work in the room. It is key to separate your work life and your home life — something that took a long time to achieve for me, personally. I also found it helpful to have a supportive partner. I started making it a rule to ask them if they have the mental space to listen to me. If all else fails, cats and corny movies are also important parts of my self-care.
If you have been connecting with the firms across our Canadian division, you may have noticed a new link when you visited the Amicus, Ace, Neesons or Royal websites. We are happy to welcome you to our new Veritext Canada blog!
The Reportex team has used this blog not only to highlight our innovative services and solutions but also to help people understand the vision and passion that has driven the company to where it is today. Many of these posts fall under our (R)evolution series and use the hashtag #shapingthefuture — and these are more than catchphrases. We have been committed to being the driving force of change and advancement when it comes to legal services and court reporting in Canada. It is our goal to support a sustainable future for our industry.
It is why we are now proud to be a part of Veritext Legal Solutions. We know we can do great things together.
Through the profiles in our Connect Series, our blogging platform has also been used to showcase the many talented people who are key parts of the engine that keeps this amazing machine running. We hope to keep this initiative going and highlight the many outstanding people across our teams in Canada and the US. We are all in this together now.
The blog is here to keep you — our clients and colleagues — informed of any changes or updates to our services. We also want to communicate more with and about the incredible reporters and other independent contractors — editors, proofers, scopers, technicians and everyone else that makes up the organization. Also watch this space for information about webinars and seminars that we are hosting or sponsoring.
And we want to make sure we stay relevant to meet your needs in your own legal community. If you have stories or suggestions to share, please do not hesitate to reach out to me – Kerry Sauriol – at [email protected].
Enjoy.
by Kerry Sauriol, Marketing Coordinator
March 8 is International Women’s Day, and the Government of Canada’s theme for 2022 is Women Inspiring Women.
It also marks my one-year anniversary with the company. There have been massive changes since then — Reportex is now Veritext Canada — but the one constant has remained: each of our offices across Canada (Reportex, Ace, Royal, Amicus and Neesons) is run by an empowered and largely female-led team, and it is always exciting to see such strong roles continuing to develop and influence this industry for everyone involved.
Over the last few decades the job market has seen drastic changes to the types of employment available. According to Statistics Canada over 2.6 million people describe themselves as self-employed, and approximately 40 percent of them are women. 95 percent of court reporters and transcriptionists in Canada are female.
Born in 1860, Georgina Alexandrina Fraser was Canada’s first female journalistic stenographer. She also taught young women to do the same. However, it took a lot longer for women to enter the legal services in Canada, and their struggle is aptly described in this Maclean’s article from 1954:
“SEVEN years ago, two energetic but penniless young women freshly out of His Majesty’s services were suddenly faced with the sobering [a]nd dismaying realization that they were once [a]gain living in a man’s world.
Ethel Zatyko and Rena Pettypiece had taken a twelve-month course in the hope of becoming court stenographers. They decided to pursue their chosen vocation in Alberta, which they regarded as a province of oil booms and millionaires. They wrote letters of application to court officials. But when the answers came, their hopes were dashed: the RCAF might recruit women wireless operators, but Alberta doesn’t allow women court reporters.
The girls were stunned and indignant, but never tearful.
They decided to go to Alberta anyway and show what women can do.”
Things have changed in Alberta and the rest of Canada.
The passion and belief in what we do has not changed. It is what pushes the people here to evolve and continue to look to the future of court reporting in Canada as we connect with like-minded people and organizations across the country.
The passion and belief in what we do also drives us to encourage and support court reporters to be the best in their field. We are excited to be planning more workshops and continuing education opportunities across Canada.
The passion and belief in what we do drives us to ensure the best technologically relevant services for our clients. Legal services are evolving quickly, thanks to many outside forces, and we are here to make sure you are ready to face them all.
Our name and logo may have changed, but our core values and commitment to this industry have not changed. Today we support many women-focused initiatives across Canada, including West Coast LEAF, Dress for Success, TLABC Women Lawyers Retreat and ACTLA Women’s Legal Forum. Our commitment to the future is to continue to inspire and support women (and men) to be the best they can be and to always dream big.
The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) has designated February 5th to 12th as the time to recognize and celebrate your decision to make court reporting and captioning your career.
We are happy to do our part in recognizing this week, so watch our social channels to see how we recognize our first Court Reporting & Captioning Week as part of the Veritext team.
Christy Pratt, our regional vice president, Canada West, is now on the Veritext Peer Advisory Council (VPAC). On February 9th she and her fellow council members are hosting what should be a lively discussion about their top tips, tricks and resources for stenographic court reporting students, recent grads and steno professionals. You can register here for this event.
This is the week to share your stories and experiences and tell the world why you love your job.
Throughout the week Leanne Kowalyk, realtime court reporter and our director of court reporting, Canada, will be sharing information and stories about the benefits of choosing court reporting as your career. The following week on February 15 she will be speaking to the captioning and court reporting students at NAIT about her advice and strategies on becoming a successful court reporter. She will also be interviewing a current student, who will share her experience in the program.
Recently we asked Leanne to look into her crystal ball, and she told us:
“I believe there will always be exciting opportunities for court reporters across Canada. Will there be changes along the way? Of course. Evolution is a necessary part of sustainable opportunity. The more doors that reporters have open before them, the more opportunities they will have, and there truly are so many.”
2022 is off and running, and despite the seemingly unending gloom from COVID restrictions and fears, we are going full steam ahead with our vision for the future of our new national branding as we transform into Veritext (Canada).
Our vision includes a few improvements to our blog and the type of content we share with you. Over the next few months you will see news and updates about legal services and legal technology, not just for our clients’ benefit but for our partners and court reporters across Canada.
We want this site to be your go-to for all your needs when it comes to staying on the cutting edge of legal tech and how it is influencing the world of court reporting.
Watch this space for information about our partners across Canada and the specialized services they offer.
Watch this space to learn more about the highly trained court reporters that work with us.
Watch this space to see more learning opportunities for our clients and court reporters.
We welcome any input about what you need to know more about when it comes to our services and how we can help you.
We are thrilled to be working with Kim Neeson, our connection to Toronto and the east. As regional vice president for Veritext Canada (East) and principal/founder of Neesons, a Veritext Company, she leverages over three decades of court reporting experience, technological insights and dedication to her clients. Kim Neeson is one of the nation’s foremost experts in advanced-technology reporting and CART. Over the years Kim has been an active member in organizations such as NCRA, STAR, CSRAO and Lawyers Feed the Hungry, and she is a fellow of the Academy of Professional Reporters. Kim is a CSR (in both Ontario and Alberta) as well as an RPR, CRR and CRC. She recently became a certified coach, obtaining her Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential.
Can you share with us how you became a court reporter and what led you to found Neesons?
I originally wanted to be a lawyer, but at the time I was thinking of it, the profession had too many lawyers! My aunt knew someone who was a court reporter. I met her, saw that little machine, and I was hooked.
I created Neesons as a place where I could put my technology-forward thinking to work (this being the mid 90s, when realtime was still in its relative infancy) and create a top-of-class court reporting firm where we’d do lots of high-stakes litigation with the best-in-class court reporters around! I wanted to become a niche business with clients who appreciated the kind of services we could deliver.
Is there a trial or experience that you feel made a big impact on you and how you view the role of a court reporter?
I have been privileged to work on many important pieces of litigation over the years, such as the overturning of the wrongful conviction of Steven Truscott, the trial of the Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel (where I used my first PC and CAT software!) and the first cross-border trial ever conducted in the Nortel Networks bankruptcy, where Neesons provided much of the technology and realtime in two different jurisdictions. Court reporting was such an important part of all of these cases, and I was so honoured to be a part of history in the making. There aren’t too many careers out there where you can say that!
As Veritext expands west, what are your thoughts on this new phase of growth?
I’m super excited to bring together east and west. It’s about time! As many of the larger law firms have become national in scope, I’m so pleased that through Veritext we’ve been able to become an almost national court reporting firm. I think this uniquely positions us in the legal industry and will present for us new opportunities of growth and exposure.
How do you see this new unified national team helping better service the legal industry across Canada?
Christy and I share a passion for bringing technology to the legal industry. I see us being able to bring about even more change and enhancement to the litigation experience for our clients, with access to our expertise and know-how no matter where they are in Canada. Discoveries in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto? No problem! One-stop scheduling. One team. One vision.
Veritext’s corporate values are respect, ethics, collaboration, accountability and professionalism. Can you tell us which of these values resonates most strongly with you and why?
I don’t know that I could pick one of these values alone. I believe in and have practiced all of these values in my life, both personally and professionally. When I built my business, all of these values played a role. In fact I was spurred on to start my own business when the freelance firm I was working for didn’t have these values. I wanted to create that space where these values would be lived. I believe that by embracing our differences, we are stronger as a whole. Maybe I’d add a value: inclusion.
Wellness and self-care are important to our team. Do you have a favourite way to recharge or any tips for staying healthy mentally and physically?
I am lucky to have an escape from the city in Blue Mountains, Ontario. So I get out and hug a tree pretty often. I also love to take my fur baby, @JaxLaxthePWD, out for long walks on the trails we have here.
As a reporter I learned the importance of looking after your body — it does take a beating, writing on that machine all day — and so working out, stretching and doing yoga and Pilates are all a part of my routine. Keeping those upper body muscles loose and stretched is just so important!
We love seeing the worlds of Veritext and Reportex connecting and getting to know each other better. Recently Jan Ballman of Veritext Minneapolis took the time to interview our very own Lana Allen, RPR, RCR, CCP. Lana is a realtime court reporter. Realtime reporting is the instantaneous translation of oral proceedings into English text. Counsel’s laptop or iPad is connected to the reporter’s secure realtime network, enabling counsel to read and annotate the text on their screen in real time during the proceedings.
Lana has over 20 years’ experience in both criminal and civil cases, with experience and an extensive knowledge base of Aboriginal, medical, marine, environmental, construction and engineering-related terminology. She also does communication access realtime translation (CART), also known as realtime captioning, for the deaf and hard of hearing.
You can read and learn about Lana’s globetrotting ways here.
Zinnie is our documents specialist and copy editor. In addition to editing written content for Reportex, she is involved in quality control and the preparation of various documents and appeal products. Zinnie was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, and has loved the written word for as long as she can remember (as a child she could never understand why finding errors in books, menus and signs exhilarated her!). She currently lives in Beaumont, Alberta, with her husband and three school-aged kids.
While editing and proofreading are indeed skills that can be learned, what innate personality type do you think it takes to be an expert QC collaborator and copy editor?
While I’m not sure there is a specific personality type, I know there are definitely certain traits that anyone in this line of work needs to have. When you spend your days happily hunting for errors and inconsistencies, conscientiousness is crucial in order to stay focused and finish tasks meticulously. Perfectionism is a blessing and a curse — editors have to strive for perfection but not obsess over it and risk getting bogged down. It’s also important to be able to look at documents with curiosity and a critical eye, not being afraid to research things, point out weaknesses and make suggestions. Humility is also a beneficial trait since editors don’t generally feel the need for recognition; we tend to enjoy staying behind the scenes.
At Reportex our core values of team, mentorship, equality, community and industry are central to what we do. Veritext’s mission and corporate values dovetail nicely to our already solid foundation. Together we aim to be respectful, ethical, collaborative, accountable and professional. Can you tell us which of these values resonates most strongly with you and why?
Team and collaborative are at the top of my list, without a doubt. I am so grateful for the people I get to work with. Many people I know dread meetings, but I get to look forward to them! Drama with co‑workers? Pressure from superiors? Nope! I have a tremendous sense of gratitude for the fact that I have such a positive work environment. The most challenging projects and tight deadlines can be experienced in a completely different way when you’re working alongside the most amazing team.
Sometimes I pause and think about just how much effort goes into producing a single transcript or appeal product, and it’s incredible. I’ve always been impressed at how much we value quality at Reportex — enough to invest whatever is needed to ensure that we are delivering top-notch products every single time. This simply couldn’t happen if each member of our team didn’t have a pivotal role to play in the collaborative process.
We talk quite a bit about wellness and self-care on our blog and internally through our Teams channels. Do you have a favourite way to recharge or any tips for staying healthy mentally and physically?
Although I’ve always viewed wellness as incredibly important, I had a very disordered way of approaching it until I entered my 30s. One of the most valuable things I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t have to be perfect or live up to societal standards. I do try to incorporate intentional movement into each day, and that’s always a great choice for both my mental and physical health — but I certainly don’t do it because someone else says I should! The most important thing to me is being my best self and doing what feels good to me on any given day or in a given season of life. For instance, I might run and do strength training most days one week, and the next week I might decide that long walks and yoga feel best. One day I’ll crave and enjoy salad for lunch, but the next day might be pizza or a couple of chocolate chip cookies. I’ve found it extremely freeing to give myself permission to take up space in the world, learn how to listen to my body, find balance and avoid comparison. This, for me, is true wellness and self-care.
My faith keeps me grounded, especially in the tumultuous time we’re living in. I’m a very early riser since I love the stillness of mornings, and that’s when I’m most productive and energized. I also love a lot of random things that keep me feeling great mentally and physically (even though my husband likes to tease me for the array of comfort items and routines that I have). These are a few of my favourite things (and yes, whiskers on kittens would be on the expansive list if I had an unlimited word count!): essential oils, lots of water, my body pillow, Netflix, daily chocolate, intuitive-ish eating, kombucha, good books, buttery popcorn, coffee/tea and lingering hugs from my kids.