LaShae Flowers builds a career in accessibility and CART captioning

LaShae Flowers has turned decades of court reporting and captioning experience into a career focused on access for Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities. Her path highlights how mentorship, discipline, and adapting to new technology are reshaping communication support work.

Why it matters: - LaShae Flowers’ work helps Deaf and hard-of-hearing students, employees, and guests access classes, meetings, events, and campus activities in real time. - Her career shows how court reporting skills can translate into broader communication access work with direct impact on inclusion. - Her experience also reflects a larger shift in the field toward technology-assisted captioning and constant retraining.

What happened: - LaShae Flowers, RPR, CRR, CRC, works as a Remote Staff CART Captioner for the University of Illinois Chicago. - She provides real-time captioning for university settings and other professional environments. - Influential Women featured Flowers in a profile about her career path and professional values. - More information is available through LaShae Flowers’ profile.

The details: - Flowers earned an Associate of Applied Science in Court Reporting from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where she studied from 1986 to 1988. - She began her early career in freelance court reporting during the 1990s, covering civil cases, workers’ compensation matters, and depositions. - Her work history spans educational, medical, business, and government settings. - Flowers stepped away from the profession to raise her children and later returned with a stronger focus on CART, or Communication Access Realtime Translation. - She credits much of her growth to experienced captioners who mentored her, including professionals who were early television captioners. - Her certifications include Certified Real-Time Captioner, Registered Professional Reporter, Certified Caption Provider, CRR, and CRC. - She is a member of the National Court Reporters Association. - Outside work, Flowers spends time with her family and dogs and stays active through swimming, workouts, pickleball, and travel.

Between the lines: - Flowers’ story is as much about service as it is about technical skill. - Her comments point to a profession where accuracy matters, but purpose and access matter just as much. - She also frames balance as a career requirement, not a luxury, after seeing the toll of overwork and burnout. - The COVID-era surge in Zoom and Microsoft Teams captioning underscored how essential the work became, while also increasing pressure on captioners. - Technology has changed the job from stenographic notes and typewriters to software, AI-assisted spelling suggestions, and digital workflows. - Flowers’ experience suggests the profession now rewards both deep foundational training and a willingness to keep learning.

What's next: - Flowers is continuing to work in a field that is still adapting to new software, AI tools, and virtual communication formats. - Ongoing training will remain necessary as captioning technology evolves. - Her focus will likely stay on access, professionalism, and sustainable work habits.

The bottom line: - Flowers’ career shows how specialized reporting skills can become a long-term path to inclusion, not just transcription.