The mission of Arkansas Court Reporting Academy is to educate students in the voice writing method of court reporting by utilizing our innovative educational tools and proven skills and expertise in the industry. Our program follows the guidelines as set forth by the Arkansas Board of Certified Court Reporter Examiners as well as the National Verbatim Reporters Association. Upon completing the program, students who attend ARCRA should be qualified to become certified in the field of court reporting after successfully passing the state and/or national certification test.

Kristy Rooney, CCR, has been a certified court reporter in the state of Arkansas for 24 years and working in the legal field for 31 years. Following certification in 1996, she began her career as a freelance court reporter subcontracting for a court reporting firm. Subsequently, in 2003, Kristy decided to form her own court reporting firm, which is Conway Court Reporting, and began to mentor newly certified reporters. The firm began to grow, and she then decided in 2007 to bring on a business partner, as well as additional reporters to the firm.

Kristy developed an interest to train prospective court reporters after becoming aware of the overwhelming need of step-by-step instruction to ensure that we produce excellent court reporters who will be our future keepers of the record. In 2010 Kristy opened Arkansas Court Reporting Academy teaching students located throughout the state of Arkansas in hands-on classes at her facility located in Conway, Arkansas. In 2015 Kristy closed ARCRA due to the workload involved with her court reporting firm as well as the demands of operating a hands-on and online school. Due to the shortage of court reporters throughout the nation and the previous success of ARCRA, Kristy elected to reopen teaching online classes only with the assistance of a new instructor, her daughter, Heather Pierce, CCR, who worked in the legal field for eight years and has been a certified court reporter for seven years. In 2019 Amanda Brown, CCR, who has also been a certified court reporter for seven years, joined our team as an instructor as well. Therefore, ARCRA will now be operating with a combined experience of 51 years in the industry.