Capitalist Stenographers

The typical court stenographer sits quietly below the bench, meticulously recording every spoken word. For all his importance, he is usually unnoticed.

Sidney Lipman, the freelance stenographer who worked at the Mary Jo Kopechne inquest in Edgartown, has changed all that. A plump, tenacious Bostonian of 45, Lipman insists that he has the right to sell copies of the inquest transcript for publication. Not only has the controversy forced the Suffolk Superior Court to impound the document until the issue is resolved; it has suddenly made court stenographers highly visible and subject to sharp questions about their rights and roles.

Rival Release. Lipman was hired for the inquest by District Attorney Edmund Dinis, who suggested that the stenographer could undoubtedly supplement his court fee by selling transcripts to the press. Lipman assembled a six-man team including two reporters, two secretaries, a duplicator operator and a messenger boy. He contracted with news organizations to sell 79 transcripts at $1.05 per page or $802.20 per set. Then Lipman discovered that a Suffolk Superior Court clerk, Edward V. Keating, planned to release the transcript at the bargain price of $75 per copy.

Lipman filed suit to block that release. Said he: "We worked very hard in Edgartown, and I spent a lot of money getting the transcript to the judge every morning. Now I'm just asking to get what I deserve from the job."

When can a court reporter become entrepreneur and make a profit from public records? Is there a limit to the price he can ask, or the number of people he can sell to? According to an American Bar Association spokesman, the legal rules governing freelance stenographers are usually set by the local courts or by the judge in a particular case. Beyond that, freelancers are bound only by the standards of their profession and the terms of individual contracts with their customers.

In contrast, full-time court stenographers often have both their salaries and out-of-court fees regulated by statute. Even so, Mrs. Dorothy Brackenbury, the chief reporter in Judge Julius Hoffman's court during the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial, stands to make a modest fortune selling the 22,500-page transcript at the federally regulated price of 40-c- per page. At this rate, she can gross $9,000 per copy, and she already has several buyers.

Though most court proceedings are a matter of public record, the fact that many courts allow stenographers to rake in extra income means that a Sidney Lipman or a Dorothy Brackenbury can make a killing on an important case. As it stands, only poor defendants are shielded from potentially avaricious stenographers. In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an indigent defendant on appeal has a constitutional right to a free copy of his trial record. All others must pay--and pay.

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