Daytona Beach / Florida / United States
In the early 1950s, the demand from the legal field to increase full-service court reporting became more evident. Sclafani Williams Court Reporters, Inc was founded to provide these services to the legal community. Since then, court reporting has continued to expand to meet added service demands such as realtime reporting, closed-captioning for the hearing impaired, video depositions, videoconferencing and synchronized transcripts, exhibits and video using CD and DVD technology. Through the years, Sclafani Williams has anticipated these demands and will continue to meet the new challenges ahead. Sclafani Williams Court Reporters started with Rosie. Before founding the firm, she worked as a court reporter for a local law firm and the Florida Industrial Commission reporting statements for workers compensation issues. In these early days, her husband John and daughter Freida assisted Rosie with everything except the stenography. They produced the transcripts, they stacked paper with carbon paper, they did the manual binding, delivered the transcripts and took care of billing. While the family continued their dedicated work, Polk County grew and prospered. With the explosive growth, a need for a full-service court reporting agency arose. A local law firm encouraged Rosie to open an office and for the amount of $50 a month, rented her office space next to their own office. Thus, in 1953, Rosie Sclafani and Associates was founded in Lakeland, Florida. In 1954, Rosie was appointed Official Court Reporter for the Tenth Judicial Circuit, encompassing three counties. Freida, in the meantime, was attending high school and still helping Rosie in the office. When Freida completed two years of college, she worked as a secretary to Judge A.H.Lane, Circuit Judge, from 1965 to 1971. During this time, Freida followed in her mothers footsteps and attended a private court reporting school. In 1979, after 17 years as a state official, Rosie was appointed Federal Official Court Reporter in Tampa for Judge George Carr. Her promotion left a vacancy for Freida who was appointed State Official Court Reporter in August of 1979. Rosie now worked full time in Tampa, and Freida began overseeing the daily operations in the Lakeland office. In 1980, Freida became a stockholder in the firm and the name changed to Sclafani Williams Court Reporters, Inc Rosie Sclafani was elected President of the Florida Court Reports Association in Sarasota, Florida in 1981 to serve for a term of one year. In 1999-2000, Freida likewise served the association as President. Sadly, in 1991, John Sclafani suffered a massive stroke and Rosie became inactive in the business. Freida took over all day-to-day responsibilities for the operations of the firm. Then, in 1993, Rosie was diagnosed with cancer and died in May of 2000. Freida, in the tradition of her parents, continued to grow the company, adding services and locations. In 1992, Sclafani Williams Court Reporters networked the Lakeland office using Novell, added a wide-area network with modem-capabilities to the outer offices. All the staffed offices were videoconferencing with 384 ISDN lines. In 1997, and then again in 2000, the network was upgraded. With Windows 2000, Sclafani Williams discarded the old DOS-based system, and integrated scheduling with state-of-the-art tracking of jobs and client information. As in their early, humbler days, Sclafani Williams performs all accounting and payroll in-house, controlling all their accounting and billing functions, plus report writing performed by firm personnel. Since 1999, the staffed offices have offered videoconferencing with 384 ISDN lines. In 2000, firm personnel also create digital videotape depositions with the capability of importing to CD and DVD technology. In 1984, Freida attained the Certified Manager of Reporting Services (CMRS) certificate. She continues to maintain that certification through the National Court Reporters Associations continuing education program. In
