Everyone loves to complain about the high cost of lawyers and legal fees, more specifically. However, out of pocket expenses for legal fees can be incredibly high, and are often overlooked by litigants. These costs can include court filing fees, copying documents, couriers, and expert witnesses. And of course, transcripts. You might need a transcript of a deposition or court proceeding to use for an appeal, to prepare for a hearing or to use as evidence in some circumstances. Generally, the transcripts are created by a person typing the document while listening to an audio recording, pretty much how this was done through most of the twentieth century! There has been very little change or innovation in this area, as explored by Carolyn Elefant, a solo attorney, in this blog post. Carolyn also notes that lowering costs helps people afford the legal help they need. I have practiced law in Maryland since 2004, and this process has only changed in that I now request an estimate by online form rather than picking up the phone, and now I get the transcript emailed as a PDF rather than paper through the mail.
As I write this in 2017, you can use artificial intelligence to set the date for a deposition, order up an uber to get to the deposition, store and annotate the documents on a tablet, but at the end of the day, the court reporter will be charging per page to type out what was said.