Legal transcription refers to the transcription of audio/video pertaining to matters of law.

Law is a system of rules enforced by specified institutions. It reaches into virtually every aspect of life. It shapes politics, economics and society.

Laws dealing with society, commerce and regulation are differentiated with different agencies enforcing the same.

The scope of law dealing with society includes labor law, human rights law, civil and criminal law, immigration and nationality law, social security, and family law. The commercial law includes branches such as company law, commercial law, admiralty and the Law of the Sea, intellectual property law, and restitution. Regulatory law includes subjects such as tax law, banking law, law to deal with provision of public services and utilities, competition law, consumer law, and environmental law. These are but just a few examples of the diverse purview of law.

Legal professionals such as attorneys, paralegals, judges, law enforcement officers etc. form the workforce behind maintaining law and order. These legal professionals through the course of their work generate a lot of reports, many of which are recorded in either audio or video formats. These recordings then have a need to be converted to text format and here comes into play the role of a legal transcriptionist.

These legal transcripts may vary from correspondence, interviews of witnesses/victims/suspects, interrogations, telephone interviews, field dictation, IRS audits, private investigations, undercover recordings, security tapes, wire-taps/body bugs, surveillance reports, PACE (Police and criminal evidence) interviews, police reports, police scene recordings, recorded statements, traffic accident reports, fire reports, crime scene investigations, jail phone calls, court proceedings, administrative hearings, judgments, client tapes, briefs, arbitrations, depositions, sworn statements, legal examinations under oath/pleadings, law office recordings, client letters, trials, legal letters and general correspondence, jury instruction, motions, licensing appeals, mediation briefs, public hearings, summons, subpoenas, memorandums, presentations, evidence/Legal argument, telephone conversations, testimonies, paralegal services, panel hearings, legal videos, tribunal reports, disciplinary hearings, adjudication panel hearings and witness statements, legal seminars and conferences encompassing the different branches of law such as real estate, family, personal injury, business, corporate, and criminal law. Phew! And that does not cover the whole of it! There are many more such legal reports out there, but the most common of them are mentioned above.