Month: July 2020
Durham Court Reporting
Durham was a sleepy Southern town prior to the Civil War, but was built by tobacco and textiles during the post-Civil War era. One of the world’s largest corporations, American Tobacco, was founded here by Washington Duke. Trinity College, which was brought to Durham thanks to Duke’s generosity, was renamed Duke University nearly 20 years after his death. The Duke family also started textile mills in the area and expanded throughout the state. While the tobacco warehouses aren’t used for tobacco anymore, they’ve been repurposed and house some of the city’s best restaurants, art galleries, and shops. The Duke institution that brings most attorneys to Durham, though, is world-renowned Duke University Medical Center.
Our Durham office, located on Broad Street near the NC School of Science & Math, is close to shopping and dining on Ninth Street, including top-rated Parizade. For lodging, in the downtown area we recommend the Durham Marriott City Center. Closer to the Research Triangle Park, at Southpoint, we recommend Hyatt Place.
If you have some extra time while you’re in Durham, check out the gorgeous Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University, the Duke Basketball Museum, or, depending on the time of year, catch a minor league baseball game at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
Legal Media Experts provides deposition suites and professional court reporters and videographers in Durham, and we would be honored to handle all of your deposition needs in the Durham area. Schedule today using our online form or call the office at 800-446-1387 and we will make sure you’re taken care of.
Fired Court Reporter Blames His Misconduct on Court Clerk
After the head court reporter in Manhattan’s civil courts was dismissed from his job, he filed a wrongful termination suit against his former employer giving an unusual reason for his misconduct.
John Phelps filed suit against the New York State Unified Court system seeking reinstatement to his job. He formerly supervised approximately 60 people working in four state courthouses. As a supervisor, he was to only “rarely” transcribe cases, but the judge who determined Phelps should be dismissed characterized him as a “bully” who threatened his subordinates.
According to the court documents, some colleagues testified in Phelps’ defense and spoke highly of him, but other witnesses said he did little actual supervising and took home tens of thousands of dollars per year by disregarding the part of his job description that said he should only “rarely” transcribe proceedings.
“As one who has devoted over half a century to public service, it is not easy to recommend the termination of employment of another public servant,” wrote Joseph Fisch, a retired judge who heard the court system’s case against Phelps. “But I cannot faithfully discharge my responsibility … by failing to take notice of the portrait of respondent that emerged after the evidence presented to me.”
Fisch wrote that Phelps was a “bully” who threatened to fire employees who crossed him. In addition, according to Fisch, Phelps “brazenly proclaimed his unqualified disdain for non-lucrative reporting work,” by saying, “I don’t do pro se” when he learned a party was self-represented and less likely to order a transcript.
In addition to his actions related to subordinates, Phelps was accused of misappropriating funds from an account the office had set up to buy gifts for judges and judicial staff.
According to the judicial hearing officer’s decision, Phelps was chronically late, delegated much of his administrative work to a “deputy” and picked plum reporting jobs for himself. He also “borrowed” thousands of dollars from an account meant to buy gifts for judges and his staff and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor petty theft in connection with his use of that money.
Phelps claims that “the court system crossed a line” by firing him, and says that the (now retired) Chief Clerk of the Manhattan Supreme Court Civil Term, John Werner, gave him permission to “work with referees or take daily assignments from judges” – the “plum” assignments, as evidenced by an email Phelps produced in which Werner said it was “no problem” for Phelps to take such assignments. However, it’s unclear whether Werner understood what that meant to the other court reporters in Phelps’ office, who were paid much less than Phelps, to have their boss competing with them financially, and whether Werner meant Phelps had carte blanche to take as many plum assignments as he wanted.