§ 1282.5.Transcription of Arbitration Proceedings

A certified shorthand reporter's transcript becomes the official record of whatever it covers -- a deposition, a proceeding, or a hearing. To get one, a party has to ask for it either in the demand for arbitration (or a response, answer, or counterclaim to that demand) or at a pre-hearing scheduling conference where the relevant deposition, proceeding, or hearing is being calendared.

Who pays depends on the situation. If the arbitration agreement does not already provide for a reporter, the requesting party bears that cost. But in a consumer arbitration, an indigent consumer -- defined the same way Section 1284.3 defines it -- gets a reporter on request at the nonconsumer party's expense.

If the arbitrator refuses to allow a reporter, the requesting party is not stuck: it can petition the court for an order compelling the arbitrator to grant the request, and can ask the court to stay the arbitration in the meantime while it sorts the issue out. One thing this section does not do, though, is create a new way to attack the resulting award -- subdivision (d) makes clear that a dispute over a reporter does not add a ground for vacating an award under Section 1286.2 or correcting one under Section 1286.6.