SAN FERNANDO VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL
For The Record
Deposition services firm Atkinson-Baker has seen lots of changes in the field.
By Mark R. Madler
March 3, 2008
Behind a heavy brown door marked “Detailing.” stacks and stacks of transcripts created by the court reporters of Atkinson-Baker Inc. are collected, bound and shipped out.
The Glendale-based deposition services firm compiles up to 600 depositions in an average week – documenting the back and forth between attorneys and witnesses in preparation for a case.
When it comes to the format attorneys prefer to receive their transcripts in, President Sheila Atkinson-Baker notes a generational difference.
“Some of the young guys prefer to have the discs,” Atkinson-Baker said. “The old school likes the paper.”
For 21 years, Atkinson-Baker’s eponymous firm has served attorneys nationwide with court reporters, videographers, interpreters and other services connected with efficiently scheduling and conducting depositions.
What these attorneys and their harried administrative assistants need, the agency gives – accuracy in the deposition and a quick turnaround.
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INC. MAGAZINE
Best of the Web Awards
Inc. Magazine hosted the "Best of the Small Business Web" competition with twenty companies chosen from a pool of over 400 entrants as examples of successful, small business sites.
"There are great business sites that serve their customers. There are great professional sites that serve their industry. Sheila Atkinson-Baker's site serves both."
"Atkinson-Baker's clients are lawyers; her industry is court reporting. As most of us know, either firsthand or from watching David E. Kelley productions, not all testimony occurs in the courtroom. Often lawyers want to know prior to a trial what a witness is going to say. They need someone impartial to take notes and type up the transcript. That's when they call Atkinson-Baker. The 12-year-old Glendale, Calif., company sends its employees out to record the proceedings of thousands of depositions every year. The company's two biggest challenges are finding the best possible reporters and managing a tangle of schedules and logistics.
"Both of those applications, of course, are ideal for the Web. But that wasn't obvious in 1995 when Atkinson-Baker launched the site..."
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"Ask small business owners how they stay afloat in a competitive market, and they may give you a laughably simple answer: Generate more revenue than you spend."
"While owners know this basic tenet of small business, it's not easy to pass that mantra on to employees who do a lot of the spending. However, Atkinson-Baker & Associates, a Los Angeles court reporting firm, has found a way to make sure its employees are aware of where the money comes and goes.
" 'Each day everybody reports their statistics,' says Atkinson-Baker. 'It all goes into a computer system, and we keep track of it all.' ... 'Employees have statistics for their job and it helps them see how well they are producing.' ... 'When we have had problem areas, the statistics have helped us catch them before they become a bigger problem,' he says."
Excerpted from Business Ethics Magazine
'I've always leased all our computers,' explains CEO Alan Baker. 'Leasing doesn't tie up our credit lines or capital resources, and there are financial advantages such as tax breaks and simplified accounting.' ...
"Baker doesn't go along with a short PC life expectancy. 'To increase the viability of our investment, we try to get four or five years out of any machine we lease,' he explains. 'At the end of a two-year lease, we usually buy the hardware for 10 percent of its value.'"
Excerpted from Beyond Computing Magazine
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