RECORDING A PROFIT : SIMPSON TRIAL STENOGRAPHER SIGNS DEALS.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

There have been lawyers writing tell-all tomes, T-shirt vendors, talking-head commentators.

Add another entrepreneur to the list of those who stand to make a tidy profit off the O.J. Simpson case: the court reporter in the civil trial.

Taking advantage of state law that gives court reporters control over the sale of transcripts, county employee Paula Dickson could make tens of thousands of dollars on top of her $60,467 annual salary by the time Simpson's wrongful death trial ends next year.

Dickson's counterparts in Simpson's criminal trial declined to disclose how much they made in transcript sales. But one, Chris Olson, suggested that she took in roughly $100,000 on top of her annual pay, which rose to about $70,000 that year because of a $10,000 bonus resulting from the Simpson case.

Last week, Dickson inked deals with CNN and Court TV, which plan to post Simpson trial testimony on their World Wide Web sites.

The agreements call for Dickson to sell transcripts at 55 cents a page, plus a surcharge of 75 cents per page for cyberspace redistribution, according to her agent, Scott Huseby, who runs NetCourt, an on-line service based in Charlotte, N.C., that matches buyers with trial transcripts across the country.

The wrongful death trial is still in the jury-selection phase in Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki's Santa Monica courtroom. When testimony starts - probably next month - the case is expected to last at least 16 weeks and generate an average of about 200 pages a day, according to Huseby and other sources.

Simpson was acquitted last year in the June 12, 1994, fatal stabbings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. He is back in court because the victims' families have filed civil lawsuits.

Dickson also has deals to sell daily transcripts, without redistribution rights, at 55 cents a page to NBC, ABC and E

Entertainment networks and to a tabloid show, ``Inside Edition.''

There also may be sales to other buyers who want only occasional transcripts.

``It's a very lucrative profession,'' said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kurt Lewin, who has long sought to replace court reporters with electronic recording devices.

The sale of transcripts might not be such a good deal for Dickson were it not for special terms she worked out with CNN and Court TV.

At her request, the networks will delay the posting of each day's trial transcripts on their Web sites for 24 hours after Dickson has made them available for sale to other buyers and through NetCourt. That should be by about 10 p.m. the same day, Huseby said.

Although nobody is suggesting that Dickson is doing anything wrong or out of the ordinary, the deals have renewed old questions about whether court reporters should have so much control over what most people consider a public document.

``If anybody should be making a profit, it should be the county making it,'' said Lori Howard, aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who favors legislation that would give courts control over transcript sales.

Laws benefiting court reporters date to the days when there was a chronic shortage of people who were trained to take shorthand at trials, Lewin said.

The law gives reporters dual status. When writing the record in court, they're public employees. But when selling that record, they're independent contractors, with exclusive control over their product, said court spokeswoman Jerrianne Hayslett.

Everybody, except indigent criminal defendants, pays for transcripts - even the court.

While it may sound like a sweet deal, preparing transcripts for sale is hard, time-consuming work, and it's all done during off-hours, court stenographers said.

Olson and her partner at Simpson's criminal trial, Janet Moxham, burned the candle at both ends during the yearlong proceedings, Olson said.

``We both got up at 5 a.m., we were usually at the courthouse by 7:15 a.m. and didn't leave till 6:30. Then we worked at transcripts at home,'' Olson said. ``You don't get a lunch. You don't get to go to dinner with your husband. . . . You give up your life.''

The court stenographers also had to be up on esoteric and scientific terminology, Olson said, to get the testimony on such issues as the DNA, the serology, the statistics and the stitching pattern on the gloves.

The two reporters sold transcripts for $1 a page to half a dozen clients.

They did not ask for delayed posting on the Internet, she added.

Financially, ``we did all right, but we worked really hard,'' she said.

Dickson declined to be interviewed. But Huseby said she probably will hire an assistant once testimony begins.

Critics of the system have pushed for legislative reforms for years. But all efforts, according to Lewin, Antonovich and others, have failed because of pressure by court reporters and their lobbyists.

Assemblyman Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, authored a measure this year that would have given courts more control over transcripts. The bill failed in the state Senate, but he may introduce another next session.

``This is the stupidity of our system,'' Miller said. ``The courts should have the right to regulate the transcript of a court hearing. Who better to have that right than the judge?''

Lewin contends that electronic devices would cost half as much as human recorders - an especially valuable savings during the county's budget crisis.

But Cheryl Redlich, president of the 2,600-member California Court Reporters Association, said the current system is the most cost-efficient for counties.

Court reporters provide the expertise and the equipment - stenotype machines, photocopiers, computers - at their own expense, Redlich said. To prepare transcripts for sale, they work at home without overtime. Their only compensation is proceeds from the sale of transcripts.

``If the county were to hire other people to do the record, the cost would actually be higher in the long run,'' Redlich said.

Court reporters oppose electronic recording, contending it provides a less accurate record of what is said in court and is cumbersome to transcribe.

In the meantime, Simpson trial junkies are eager for testimony to start so they can get their daily fix on the Internet.

With Fujisaki having pulled the plug on the television camera, trial watchers will be staring at their computer screens instead of a TV screen for hours on end.

But Jackie Reardon, a Fort Worth, Texas, housewife who will read the transcripts on Court TV's Web site as soon as they're available, isn't happy with the 24-hour delay.

``I don't want to have to wait,'' said Reardon, 38, a hard-core trial junkie who said she has forgotten more about the case than most people know.