Careers in legal studies and court reporting continue to grow across a wide range of industries that extend far beyond the traditional law firm. From corporate compliance and human resources to courtrooms and government offices, these roles are critical in supporting how the legal system and businesses operate every day.
In a recent Focus on Careers interview on WHBY radio, Jeff Meverden, department chair of Fox Valley Technical College’s Legal Studies/Paralegal and Digital Court Reporter programs, shared insight into where these careers can lead and why employer demand remains strong.
Tap the video to listen to the interview or scroll down to read the transcript.
Hayley: Welcome back. Today, it’s our Focus on Careers with Fox Valley Technical College as we highlight careers of promise within the Fox Valley area. And today, a critical part of our legal system, we are looking into legal studies/paralegal and digital court reporter studies at Fox Valley Technical College. And joining us is Jeff Meverden, who is the department chair of that program. Jeff, good morning and welcome back to Fox, Fox Valley.
Jeff: Thanks, Haley. I appreciate the time.
Hayley: Now, this is a really interesting area of study and a really needed career out there. Let’s talk with our listeners about your role, what you cover and how you came to be with Fox Valley Tech.
Jeff: That’d be great. I started at the college about 25 years ago and came on board doing a number of legal classes over the course of time. I’ve helped develop a legal studies program And now the digital court reporting. I’ve had a number of different roles, but now my two main focuses are legal studies and the digital court reporting program.
Hayley: All right. And what led you to this area of interest? Were you a court reporter or a legal studies person yourself?
Jeff: I was an attorney in a past life. I spent about nine years in private practice. And then after I got sick of divorcing people for a living, the opportunity arose at the college. And so I thought it’d be a great transition. I love the law. I love teaching it, talking about it. I just was kind of tired of practicing it.
Hayley: And what a great way to apply what you’ve learned to the future. And it’s such a layered, you know, system as well. And these roles are so integral to so many different aspects beyond just the attorney that we sometimes see profiled in television shows and such.
Jeff: Definitely. The traditional paralegal role with the law firm and with the attorney is still critical to the system. But legal studies students are finding roles in so many different areas. We’re seeing them in the courthouse. We’re seeing them in the clerk of courts offices, in judges offices, as judicial assistance. We’re seeing them in human resources departments all over the area. Corporations, insurance companies with claims we’re seeing them with compliance. There are a lot of businesses in the area that do work out of state. Well, how do we know that we’re complying with the state laws of Minnesota or wherever, unless we have someone digging into that? And the legal studies student, the paralegal is the perfect person to do that.
Hayley: You know, and a critical skill set that comes to mind as you’re listing all these different areas is not only reading the fine print but maybe understanding the complexities of the fine print.
Jeff: We spend so much time talking about terminology and how to research the law, how to go into depth on things, how to think critically. Just go past the surface and look in depth as to what this really means. So yeah, attention to detail, critical thinking skills. These are some very important skills for our students to have.
Hayley: As a required class for all high school students.
Jeff: I think I’m with you. That’d be great.
Hayley: That’d be great. All right. This is an associate degree program. What does the curriculum look like?
Jeff: So we tend to focus on different areas of the law. Now as a technical college, we work with all the area employers, whether they be insurance companies or corporations or law firms, to try to determine what they need from our students. That’s really the role of a technical college in the first place. And so we work with an advisory committee. They kind of help us form what the program looks like. And of course, that changes from time to time. So if you look at our classes, they’re very legal specific. So business law, family law, corporations, will and estate planning things along those lines so that when our students leave, they have a pretty broad background and then they can decide, hey, I really enjoyed the idea of family law. I really enjoyed wills and trusts. So I want to go work for an estate planning attorney or I really like corporations. So let me go into a human resources area.
Hayley: I love that. How are students studying or in the classroom and is it a classroom setting? Is it virtual? Is it a little bit of both? Tell us about it.
Jeff: Our program is both online and in person. So you’re a working adult. You work 40 hours. You have two kids at home. You can take us online. You can do it on a part time basis or a full time basis. However, we would love to have you come in. I love the interaction that we have in an in-person classroom. There’s much more discussion. Um, gets a little lively sometimes, but that’s okay. Uh, so I do enjoy the classroom, but yeah, you can take it both ways. And then, um, take as many classes as you want. You can take it full time, part time, online, in person, whatever works for you.
Hayley: And you also can kind of prep for maybe a larger program or a four year program at Fox Valley Tech.
Jeff: So much has changed in the last 10 to 12 years. Now my program, specifically the legal studies program does have articulation agreements with at least two colleges in the area UW Green Bay and Lakeland University. You can come to us, you can get your 62 credits, all 62-transfer right into those two four-year institutions. Something that didn’t happen 12 years ago. And now, if law school is something that you wanted to do, you can move on. You can get your four year degree from those institutions and then apply to law school. And the cost, of course, is substantially less.
Hayley: I’m sure you see a lot of students who maybe just have an interest in this. And as they go through the curriculum, they discover an absolute passion and want to apply it maybe in a bigger role.
Jeff: Definitely. I’ve had several students who have gone on… Many of my students have gone on for a four-year degree. Several of them have gone on to law school.
Hayley: That’s great. That’s great. All right. Jeff’s with us today, Department chair of the legal studies paralegal and digital court reporter program at Fox Valley Tech. So yeah, we kind of talked about some of the areas that students are hired, but what type of jobs do you see graduates stepping into upon completion of this program?
Jeff: There are so many different jobs. The jobs are across the board. You know, there’s always a need in law offices and law firms, um, courthouses, uh, businesses, human resources departments. Most of our students actually, before they even graduate, they have their full-time job. Uh, we do require an internship for the program to give them experience. But by the time we get to that final semester, they’re already employed. That’s great. They’re off to off and running.
Hayley: All right. Jeff. Uh, what kind of demand are you seeing out there? You mentioned already having that job secured. That pretty typical. And are you seeing them saying, send us more students? Send us more?
Jeff: Oh, constantly. I’m constantly fielding the questions, fielding the emails and the calls. Um, how can we get to your students? How can we partner with you? Um, and there, here’s always a role. There’s always a need.
Hayley: All right, we’ll pause here. But Jeff, we’re going to talk a little bit about how things have changed and most recently, the addition of AI into our role, into our world. And how does that impact this role? We’ll also kind of differentiate between legal studies paralegal and digital court reporter a really needed career out there. We’ll highlight all of this after the break. Don’t go away.
Focus on careers. Back with you at 1248, part of Focus Fox Valley as we learn more about programs of promise at Fox Valley Technical College. Today it is the legal Studies program and careers as a paralegal or digital court reporter. Jeff is with us, department chair of that program. And, you know, we’ve seen so much of the workforce change and technology, of course, evolving with all of that. We talked a lot about AI with Fox Valley Tech and each program looking to get their take on how AI is helping or hurting your world. You know, what do you think when you think of technology and AI and how it kind of, parallels the legal studies or paralegal digital court reporter positions?
Jeff: So AI is a tool, right? It’s a tool in any profession. It’s not going to be any different for us right now. What we’re seeing is a little bit of misuse with AI. We’ve seen a number of attorneys /being sanctioned because they went out and they thought AI could do all the work for them. And AI has a tendency to hallucinate or make stuff up. And so we’ve seen a number of attorneys get in trouble for coming in with what they thought was legitimate law or legitimate case law. And of course it wasn’t. And so they got their hand slapped.
For a legal studies student, AI is a tool to help with the research. You’ve got to have that attention to detail. You’ve got to be able to go back research. Is this right? Is this wrong? Is this true? Is this false? Um, it’s not going to replace the legal studies students or the paralegal role. I think it will become a tool that they can use, but they’ve got to learn how to use it properly. So another change that we’ve seen in our program, right, is how to teach the students how to use it, how to create those queries, how to read, view and research the information, make sure it’s accurate. And it’s obviously here to stay, but I don’t think it’s going to play if used appropriately. It’s not going to be a negative, but it’s also not going to replace them.
Hayley: I am curious though, how AI could work with a digital court reporter position. And we were we were joking during the break. Digital court reporters, I think, are so impressive. It’s like learning a new language in that courtroom. And they are the eyes and the ears and are documenting everything that happens in that courtroom. I would think that AI might be able to do that job, but maybe not quite. What are your thoughts?
Jeff: So it is very different. Whereas the legal profession from an attorney and court standpoint, we tend to shy away from new technology. We’re not the first to grab it and embrace it. When we’re talking about court reporting, it’s completely different, right?
Court reporting has changed every year now for the last 5 or 6 years that we’ve had the program; I’ve done more program plan changes on that one program than everything else combined. Ai will play a role. Right now, what we’re seeing is we need that person in the courtroom, or at least remoting into the courtroom from a designated site. It’s not a job that you can do from home, but there are locations around the state and around the country where you can remote in and you can take the record, as we call it, the court reporter record remotely. However, we still need that person. We still need that person who’s monitoring all that equipment, making sure that everything is being recorded properly, so that if a microphone goes down and a witness’ voice is not being heard, they can stop the proceeding right away. Um, we rely very heavily obviously on expert and witness testimony, but where AI will come in is in creating that transcript. So what happens is the digital court reporter is present. They take down everything or the stenographic court reporter, and then all of that has got to be turned into a written document. Ai is playing a role there. That’s where we’re seeing these documents being generated by AI. And but then again, an individual has to be there to check it, to proof it, and then to what we call certify it to make sure that it’s authentic and that it’s real and it’s genuine. So it’s a little bit different there. It is, definitely very technology heavy.
Hayley: Again, using it as a tool and not as your entire personality.
Jeff: Correct. And I think we’re a way away from that again, because law doesn’t necessarily like change as much. I think we’ll still be seeing that person, that court reporter taking down the record. I don’t think they’ll be replaced anytime soon, but AI plays a role.
Hayley: Interesting. All right. Who thrives in your programs? Who do you see that just does so well? And what are some of those qualities that also accompany that?
Jeff: Oh, the qualities are all over the place. But what I see in the driven students are number one, you’ve got to have an interest in the law, whether it’s digital court reporting or whether it’s legal studies. You’ve got to have that fascination with the law because if you don’t, you’re going to be bored. You have to have that attention to detail for either program. You’ve got to be able to spot the errors. You’ve got to be able to research, you’ve got to be able to critically think. And when I talk to our employers, especially in the legal studies side, soft skills are one of those things that are one of those lost arts that we’re seeing. How can you communicate well, both written and in person, talking to clients. If you’re a court reporter talking to the judges, talking to the other people in the courtroom. So, um, these are just a handful of the skills that are really necessary.
Hayley: All right. What do you think the most rewarding part of your job might be, Jeff?
Jeff: Watching the students grow, watching the students flourish. In addition to my role, I’m also an advisor for a group called Collegiate DECA. And a lot of my students go with me and we go state and national conferences. We just came back from Louisville, Kentucky, for a national conference for collegiate DECA and watching the students really expand on their ability to communicate with not only students, but judges and professionals. It really is rewarding to see them grow and then go off on to their profession and do well.
Hayley: All right. Well, if anyone is listening and wants to learn more about the program or wants to share it with a young person in their life, perhaps how can we direct them?
Jeff: If you just want to do some research, you can go out to the Ftcc website, http://www.ftc.edu, backslash paralegal. Otherwise, call the college, ask for Jeff and you’ll be routed to me. Be happy to talk to you.
Hayley: Perfect, Jeff. Thanks for being here today.
Jeff: Thank you so much.
