Home     Contact Us    
Main Board Job Seeker's Board Job Wanted Board Resume Bank Company Board Word Help M*Modal Nuance New MTs Classifieds Offshore Concerns VR/Speech Recognition Tech Help Coding/Medical Billing
Gab Board Politics Comedy Stop Games Faith Board Prayer Requests Health Issues

ADVERTISEMENT



Company Board

Legal transcription - MTpockets

Posted: Oct 3rd, 2015 - 10:56 am

I am was an MT and now legal/criminal/general transcriptionist and I wanted to put the information out to those of you who are interested in the pay for legal/criminal transcription and the difference of MT work.

With non-MT transcription you are transcribing a variety of "recordings." They could be interviews, focus group meetings, sermons, police encounters with suspects of a crime, lie detector interviews, 911 calls, etc.  The number of "speakers" could vary anywhere from one, such as in a sermon, or multiple such as a crime scene recording with multple officers, medical personnel, witnesses, etc.  

With non-MT recordings you are usually paid by the minute, which could be anywhere from 40 cents/minute (low) - up to 90 cent/minute (average).   This sounds good but you must take into account that the recordings are not dictations, excluding a sermon or lecture with one speaker.  The rest of the recordings is raw capture, meaning you could get a mix of fast speakers, speakers with accents, and speakers talking over each other. There sometimes will be background noise that you have to learn to train your ear to ignore and focus on what is being said.

The average minutes you are able to do in 8 hours will be anywhere from 45 to 80 minutes, again depending on what type of recording you are doing.  I have done rap songs that are 4 to 5 minutes long and it has taken me all day.  So, when you multiply that by the .40 to .90 cents per minute, it doesn't amount to much.  This is the reason I wanted to put some information out there to those that want to go this route.  

I am in an hourly position with my county law enforcement, and I make over $20/hr.  I came from the MT field because of the gutted pay.  However, government is now looking at doing the same thing, outsourcing our work.  We had one outside service for overflow when I started.  They are now using multiple because one service could not handle the overflow, and they told us they will not be hiring new positions inhouse for the increased work.  This is why there have been more and more job postings for non-MT transcription. It is a growing field.  

I just felt an obligation to share what I know about this field.  It's very interesting work and I love it.  But the serivces pay way less than medical transcription, and they already pay wages no one can live on working a 40 hour week.

If there are other non-MT transcriptionists doing this "alternative" work, I would love to hear from you. Please share what you see both positive and negative.  

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.  

 



ADVERTISEMENT


Reply By Email Options


Complete Discussion Below: ( marks the location of current message within thread)