How do you maintain speed after school?

225 wpm seems to be the magic number to graduate and to qualify for many court jobs. I was wondering how often do you hear people speaking at 225+, and hwo do you maintain that speed outside of school? Is it a matter of once you have it, you keep it?
 

Working maintains your speed.   I find that taking a few days off actually rejuvenates my writing.  I remember as a fledgling reporter I was afraid to take a vacation for fear of losing my speed.  The opposite was true.

Today, I reported two depositions, both  sides.  The plaintiff, an attorney, was suing the defendant, a former client, for nonpayment of legal fees. The defendant was countersuing the plaintiff for legal malpractice.  When the attorney-plaintiff was questioned by the defense counsel he never interrupted the questions.  But when this same gentleman deposed the defendant, it was a reporter's nightmare.

The defendant-witness constantly cut off the attorney's questions, even after he was repeatedly reminded by his counsel to wait for the question to be completed. The attorney-plaintiff conducted the exam as if they were talking in a living room in someone's home and shooting the breeze.   He acknowledged on the record that he was interrupting the answers because he wanted to "get done quickly."  Thanks a lot.

Needless to say, the speed was well above 225 wpm.   In this attorney's misguided attempt to save pages, I wrote approximately 100 pages on this depo, compared to 50 pages on his examination by opposing counsel.   Not including the dashes!

The majority of attorneys and witnesses speak at 225 and above, so you don't have to worry about losing your speed.  You will see that a lot of times they get up to 250 plus, and if it's easy terminology you won't have a problem.  I end up asking them to slow down when it gets out of hand, especially when they are using medical terms or three syllable words that I haven't come up with a brief for or I've forgotten.  

Once you're out there and working you will see it's very different than school.  School is timed with one speaking at a time.  The real world you have them cutting each other off, not all the time, but it happens.  All you do is ask them to stop and repeat or you ask them to slow down.   

Whatever you do, do not rely on your audio recording.  It is a great tool to have when you are editing and have a misstroke, but always remember if you start dropping too much, you need to stop them.   

yes, please remember to ask attys to slow down!! we are not machines and they do forget we are trying to WRITE EVERY WORD they are saying.