North Carolina Verbatim Reporters Association takes great pride in providing our members with valuable resources and learning opportunities.  Since 1982 *** NCVRA has been committed to providing not only professional networking but also twice-a-year training seminar days in order to provide continuing education units.  These seminars not only pertain to voice writers involved in freelance and official court reporting but also to subjects such as health and wellness, the legal profession in general, technology and software, everyday reporting questions regarding deposition and court setup, and popular court reporting and recording equipment and best practices.  We love learning new things, and we also love to have fun.

There are two primary types of reporters: official and freelance. Officials are employees of the state and work in the courts. Freelance reporters primarily take depositions for individual attorneys who are conducting discovery in the course of a lawsuit. Regardless of whether the reporter is a freelancer or an official, the reporter's sole purpose is to be an uninterested third party who will provide a verbatim transcript of the proceeding.

Benefits include:

• Listing in the NCVRA directory
• Listing as an NCVRA member in the North Carolina Legal Directory
• Listing in reporter search referral on the NCVRA Web site
• Continuing education seminars
• Technology updates
• Networking and information exchange
• Representation of the voice writing profession at the state level

For more information, please send an email to rebecca125.rl@gmail.com. If you prefer, we also have a contact form on our site for you to fill out. We look forward to hearing from you.

All members are due to renew their membership on February 1 each year. However, there is a month's grace period, so the $10 late fee will not be applied until after March 1.

This can be found at: http://nvra.org/.

The North Carolina Industrial Commission requires that each page of the deposition (except the title page) show a header centered at the top of each page that contains the following information: case name, IC file number, and page number. The reporter is also to submit the transcript in either PDF or ASCII (.txt) format to the Deputy Commissioner, along with the sealed original transcript. Even if the transcript is e-mailed to the Deputy Commissioner, they still ask that you submit a CD-ROM as well.

For other information concerning workers' compensation cases, including mailing addresses and phone numbers for the NCIC staff, go to: http://www.ic.nc.gov.

The following excerpts are from a memorandum entitled "Telephonic Oath-giving by NC Notaries."

"Position of the Department:  It is the position of the Department of the Secretary of State that a North Carolina notary public must comply with the provisions of G.S. §10B-20(a), in accordance with the definitions in G.S. §10B-3. A notary may not perform a notarial act if those requirements are not followed. The appearance of a witness by telephone does not comply with the definition of 'personal appearance and appear in person before a notary' found in G.S. §10B-3(16); 'personal appearance and appear in person before a notary' are defined as 'an individual and a notary are in close physical proximity to one another so that they may freely see and communicate with one another and exchange records back and forth during the notarization process' (emphasis added). A notary may not, therefore, perform a notarial act by administering an oath to a person telephonically."

"A WORD OF CAUTION:  A notary is committing a crime when administering an oath without the person appearing in person before them (G.S. §10B-60(c)(1)). Furthermore, a person who solicits, coerces, or in any material way influences a notary to administer an oath without the person appearing in person before them also commits a crime (G.S. § 10B-60(j))."