BECOME A MEMBERMember of the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters
A "full Member" is a person who has satisfied the examination requirements at Membership standards, as laid down from time to time by the Council. Such full Members shall be entitled to vote at all general and extraordinary general meetings and shall be entitled to use the initials MBIVR after their name.
Membership of the BIVR is undertaken via a practical examination in a real work situation. You should first gain at least a 180 wpm speed certificate; have shadowed a qualified reporter and then undertake your membership test in the field in which you will work, either verbatim reporting at disciplinary hearings etc., or as a Verbatim Speech-to-Text Reporter.
The BIVR has the following category of members:
Fellow, Member, Associate, Student, Retired.
A Fellow is someone who undertakes two separate practical examinations.
Associate membership was open to new court reporters with a minimum speed of 160 wpm working under supervision. BIVR is no longer accepting new Associate members as most new members in the recent past have tended to be Speech-To-Text Reporters (STTRs) who need a minimum of 180 wpm and they have therefore been taken into full membership upon undertaking their practical examination. In order to work in any legal field STTRs will also need to have undertaken and passed Deaf Awareness training Level 1 and be registered with NRCPD.