Review: A Court Reporter’s Guide to Leadership and Team Building, by Colin Yorke

Got to sit down with a copy of A Court Reporter’s Guide to Leadership and Team Building. Purchased it just last week. It is a short read aimed at all court reporters, but I feel it especially helpful for newcomers to the field who may not have had time to think about the bigger picture. I also see it as something that aspiring managers should be required to read. It discusses the very important traits of bearing, courage, decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm, integrity, justice, knowledge, loyalty, tact, and unselfishness.

Mr. Yorke’s a former court reporting supervisor and Marine veteran. His work on this book neatly summarizes a lot of the broader aspects of the work that many of us in the field had to learn through attrition, observation, or failure. For example, let’s take bearing. Bearing homes in on how you conduct yourself and reiterates how that could impact upon other areas of your work or how people perceive you.

Admittedly, many of us who have had to learn these lessons the hard way or had a mentor helping us along the way may regard this book as common sense — but then I find that common sense ends up being very uncommon unless we share it and make it ubiquitous. So let me share this: If you want some fantastic insights from a former court reporting manger that get right to the point, this book is for you!

Not long ago, I had written a blog post about tips for students, and the very first thing I wrote about was respecting perspectives. I respect Colin Yorke’s perspective. I believe students should hear, see, and read these things early in their career or education, and the cost of the book, at only 10 to 13 dollars, is obtainable.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am likely to be receiving a free copy in addition to the copy I purchased, which allows me to give my purchased copy away to a stenography student. To this end, I tried to come up with a suitable method for deciding who it would go to, and I think simple lottery is fairest. If you would like to be entered into the lottery, please send your name and email to ChristopherDay227@gmail.com before 11:59 p.m. on July 19, 2019. I will write a computer program to randomly select someone and then ask the winner via email for a mailing address. The free copy will be mailed by July 27.

July 16, 2019 update:

After I posted this, Colin Yorke generously donated some more copies of his book to this lottery, so there will be more than one winner. Good luck to all entrants!