Affiliated Court Reporters, a reporter-owned court reporting firm serving Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, is clarifying where artificial intelligence and other automated tools fit in its work as those tools spread through the legal industry. The firm lists AI-assisted deposition summaries among its services as an aid for reviewing testimony, while the official record of every deposition, hearing, arbitration and trial it covers continues to be taken down by a certified stenographic reporter rather than by a recording device or speech-recognition software.
That distinction is set out in a series of articles the firm published on its website during 2025 and on its court reporting service page. The articles describe digital court reporting as a model in which a proceeding is recorded as audio and transcribed later, and they describe the firm's own method as human-driven transcription. Its reporters write proceedings on stenograph machines as the words are spoken, administer the oath to witnesses, and produce the finished transcript themselves. The firm says a trained reporter is responsible for every word of the record rather than an audio file that is processed after the fact.
That standard begins with ownership. Patricia A. Hulse, who holds the Registered Professional Reporter, Certified Realtime Reporter, and Certified Realtime Captioner credentials, became a part-owner of the firm in 2000, assumed full ownership in January 2020, and continues to work as a court reporter. The firm is an independent member of the National Court Reporters Association and a member of the Minnesota Association of Verbatim Reporters and Captioners.
"A recording captures sound, and a reporter makes a record," said Patricia A. Hulse, owner of Affiliated Court Reporters. "When two attorneys talk over each other, or a witness rushes through a drug name, the reporter stops and gets it right on the record, then and there. That transcript has to stand for years."
The deposition summaries are one example of how the firm uses technology around the record rather than in place of it. The summaries condense a completed transcript into a document that attorneys can use to review testimony, and the firm lists them as a service separate from the transcript itself. Its certified real-time reporters also stream the transcript live to laptops, tablets, and phones so attorneys can search testimony during a proceeding, and finished transcripts can be delivered with hyperlinked exhibits, a word index, synchronized video, and access through a secure online repository.
According to the firm, all of its reporters are also certified Remote Online Notaries, which allows a reporter to swear in a witness and verify identity through an encrypted platform when a deposition is held remotely or in a hybrid format. Affiliated Court Reporters conducts those proceedings on Zoom and handles the link setup and hosting, so the same stenographic standard applies whether participants sit in one of the firm's conference rooms or join the proceeding remotely from their own offices. Its articles note that in Minnesota, where weather and distance can complicate travel, remote participation has become a routine part of legal practice.
"We use technology wherever it helps attorneys review testimony, including real-time feeds, synced video and summaries," Hulse said. "The record itself is still written by a certified reporter who heard every word live and can certify it. That is the part we will not hand to software."
The firm's practice pages point to the matters where that distinction matters most. Patent cases bring chemical formulas and engineering terms, medical malpractice depositions turn on clinical vocabulary and expert testimony, construction disputes involve technical specifications and multiple parties, and family law matters call for discretion and strict confidentiality. In each setting, a reporter who is present for the testimony can ask for a spelling or stop a cross-talk exchange while the witness is still on the record.
Affiliated Court Reporters provides court reporting services, legal videography, remote and hybrid reporting, and court interpreter services to attorneys, law firms, corporate legal departments, and government agencies throughout Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. The firm has operated as a reporter-owned business since the 1950s, is based in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, and maintains conference rooms across the Twin Cities metro area, including locations near the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, for in-person and hybrid depositions.
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For more information about Affiliated Court Reporters, contact the company here:
Affiliated Court Reporters
Patricia A Hulse
(612) 338-4348
patti@AffiliatedReportersMN.com
6880 River Rd, Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076
