Recording And Transcribing Conversations for Use In Divoroce - Custody Cases (Pt. 1)
If your State allows telephone conversations to be recorded, we suggest that you put every conversation with your ex on the record. Recorded conversations can be valuable evidence of a spouse's misbehavior, inability to care for a child, or even criminal activity such as drug use. Recorded conversations can also be used to document oral agreements that you make with your ex, and may help pinpoint dates that certain activities or disputed events occurred on.
The most difficult and time-consuming part of using recorded conversations is the process of transcription, that is, making a written record of the conversation. A three-minute conversation may translate into twenty to thirty minutes of typing. Although time-consuming, this step is vital in order to use a recorded conversation as evidence. No judge (and few attorneys) have the patience to sit through an hour of tape, listening intently to what is said. Fast-forwarding back and forth on a tape to find a snippet of conversation (even an important snippet) makes you look unprepared and, in some cases, foolish. Follow these guidelines to make your transcriptions of recorded conversations more useable in court.
Always record a time and date on the tape. You can do this before you or they pick up the phone, or after they have hung up. State the time, date, and who the other party is clearly, such as "Today is December 19th, the time is 2:21 PM. I'm calling Janet to discuss the pickup time for our son Jeff." This will help immensely later on when you have hours of tape from dozens of conversations. Trying to remember on what day a particular conversation took place becomes practically impossible to do as time goes by. The brief note on the purpose of the call can help establish what the conversation was supposed to be about, regardless of what was actually discussed.
Start each written record with the same information: "12-19-1999, 2:21PM. Called Janet to discuss the pickup time for Jeff.". Make this "header" separate from the transcription that follows. Put it on a separate line or bold it, or both. This will make it easy for a judge or an attorney to quickly locate a specific conversation that you wish to have examined by the court.
If your tape recorder has an index or 'footage' counter, use it to make note of the approximate place on the tape that each call starts and stops. Don't forget to record the tape number; if you accumulate more than one tape, number them sequentially. Include this information in the transcription header. If your transcription is called into question (a distinct possibility), this will help you and the court locate specific passages on the tape more easily. Just a simple note is all that is needed, for example: "Tape #3, Start=394, End=422".
