(A) In the event an official court reporter voluntarily leaves employment; is terminated; is unavailable because of illness, disability, or incapacity; or is unavailable for any other reason, and where it would appear to not be practical or feasible to reassign another official court reporter on a temporary basis, the judge of such reporter, with the approval of the Nebraska Supreme Court, may designate or contract with a reporter having passed an examination at least as stringent as that described in § 1-204(B) or (C) or received approval from the Nebraska Supreme Court as described in § 1-204(D) to act as a substitute reporter.

   (B) The preparation of any bill of exceptions or transcript by any such substitute reporter shall be subject to the same rules and regulations as those governing permanently employed official reporters.

   (C) Payment to such contracted substitute reporter shall be on a contract basis at a rate determined by the Nebraska Supreme Court, and payment will be made only for the actual days such substitute reporter was required by the judge to be in attendance upon the court.

   (D) No contracted substitute reporter shall be entitled to any benefits ordinarily available to the official court reporter for whom he or she is substituting.

    (E) As an alternative to the provisions of § 1-212(A) through (D), the appointing judge of an official court reporter may also, on a temporary basis, either request from the Nebraska Supreme Court or designate with approval from the Nebraska Supreme Court other court personnel, as defined by § 1-204(A)(4), to operate multichannel digital recording equipment in his or her courtroom for the purpose of making the record of proceedings, so long as the court personnel meets the competency requirements of § 1-204(F).

§ 1-212 amended June 9, 2010; § 1-212(A) amended June 12, 2019; § 1-212 amended June 16, 2021, effective January 1, 2022.