Reviewed by Jamie Sutherland, CEOThe job ends when the record is produced, not when the witness steps down
Most of the hours after a proceeding are not judgment. They are first-pass mechanics: getting words onto a page so the real work, deciding what the record says, can begin.
Every reporter knows the arithmetic. The proceeding is the visible part of the job. The invisible part starts afterward: translating notes or audio into text, resolving the drops and the inaudibles, chasing the spelling of a medical device or a street name, checking attributions in a four-attorney colloquy, formatting, proofreading, and producing on deadline. A long deposition day turns into evenings of production work, and a rush order compresses all of it.
The shift from typing to correcting
Upload the proceeding audio or video, and Sonix returns a timestamped, speaker-labeled draft, usually in minutes. Every word stays tied to the moment it was spoken. Instead of rewinding a recording to find a passage, you click the word in question and hear it. Instead of typing a backup-audio section from scratch, you correct one. The draft is raw material; you are still the one who turns it into a transcript.
Where the first pass matters most
- Rough drafts. Attorneys often want something the same day. A Sonix draft gives you a fast first pass to clean up before you send any rough draft under your own name and your own terms.
- Scoping. Synced audio turns scoping from hunting through a recording into clicking a word. Your scopist works faster and asks you fewer questions.
- Gaps and backups. When primary capture has a hole or a job lands with only audio, the backup recording becomes a working draft instead of untranscribed tape.
What Sonix does not change is who is responsible for the record. That stays with you, and the rules themselves draw that line, not just this page.
Where Sonix fits in the record, and where it does not
The certified record is a legal act performed by an authorized officer, not a software output, and nothing on this page changes that.
In federal civil practice, a deposition is taken before an officer authorized to administer oaths (FRCP Rule 28), and that officer "must certify in writing that the witness was duly sworn and that the deposition accurately records the witness's testimony" (FRCP Rule 30(f)(1)). In federal courts, proceedings are recorded verbatim "by shorthand, mechanical means, electronic sound recording, or any other method" under rules set by the Judicial Conference and the presiding judge (28 U.S.C. § 753(b)). State courts and state deposition rules set their own requirements, and many states license or certify reporters through a state board.
Professional certification sits with the profession. The NCRA administers national credentials such as the Registered Professional Reporter, and AAERT offers certification for digital reporters and transcribers. Requirements differ by state and by court. Software holds none of these credentials, and Sonix does not either.
Sonix is
- A first-pass draft engine that returns a timestamped, speaker-labeled draft in minutes
- An editor with the audio synced word by word, in the browser, with nothing to install
- A search tool across every job in your account
- A safety net for backup audio and jobs that arrive as a recording only
- An export pipeline into your own templates, in DOCX, PDF, SRT, and VTT
Sonix is not
- The officer of record, or a substitute for your capture method
- The certified or official record, or a credential of any kind
- A realtime feed into your CAT software
- A decision about what the record says: every word you certify is a word you reviewed
If your court, agency, or state rules restrict how AI tools may be used in preparing a transcript or a rough draft, those rules govern. Confirm them before you change your workflow.
