Utah’s state court rules still prohibit litigants and attorneys from making their own audio recordings of court proceedings, even when a proceeding is open to the public and no legitimate confidentiality concern is present. Under Rule 4-401.02(3)(B)(ii) and (3)(C)(i) of the Utah Code of Judicial Administration, a person may not use a portable electronic device to record, photograph, or transmit images or sound of a court proceeding, “except in accordance with rule 4-401.01″—the rule governing authorized electronic media coverage. The prohibition applies not only to proceedings involving minors, victims, confidential evidence, or sensitive family matters, but to ordinary public hearings that anyone may attend and observe.
Courts routinely task parties in family law cases with drafting precise proposed orders after oral argument. Under Rule 7(j) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, when the court directs a party to prepare a proposed order confirming its decision, that party generally has 14 days to serve it. The lawyer or self-represented party responsible for memorializing the ruling is ordinarily prohibited from pressing “record” on a phone to preserve the judge’s or commissioner’s exact words while doing it.
That gap looks smaller than it used to. It isn’t closed.
Where HB 540 changed the picture
H.B. 540, enacted in the 2026 General Session and effective January 1, 2027, enacts Utah Code § 78A-1-203. Under that section, an audio recording must be made of every public court proceeding, and any individual may request it. If the requester is a party to the proceeding, the Administrative Office of the Courts must expedite the request “to the extent possible.” Under the companion fee provision, § 78A-2-301.7(4)(b), the Judicial Council may not charge a party a fee for requesting that recording.
That’s a real fix for a real problem. Before HB 540, a party who wanted the official recording of a hearing paid $15 per half-day under Rule 4-202.08(3)(C) and waited on the court’s processing timeline. After January 1, 2027, a party’s request gets priority and costs nothing. Any argument for reform that rests on cost and bureaucratic delay in obtaining the official recording is largely mooted, and a piece that ignores that isn’t going to land with anyone who tracks the legislature.
Where HB 540 doesn’t reach
HB 540 is a request-and-produce system. It assumes the proceeding has already happened, the recording has already been made by the court, and the party is now asking the AOC to hand it over—expedited, but still after the fact and still routed through an institutional process. It does nothing for the lawyer who needs to start drafting the proposed order that afternoon, while the court’s phrasing, the sequence of findings versus arguments, and the conditions attached to the ruling are still fresh and unambiguous.
A personal recording made contemporaneously would let a lawyer or self-represented party:
- verify the court’s exact ruling before memory degrades;
- distinguish findings from arguments, questions, and tentative observations;
- resolve disagreements over wording before they escalate into motions;
- prepare a more accurate proposed order on the first pass;
- identify issues the court reserved rather than decided; and
- reduce avoidable objections under Rule 7(j).
None of that requires waiting in a audio recording request queue, however fast that queue now moves. It requires the ability to record the hearing yourself, in real time, for your own use. HB 540 solves the transparency problem—the public’s access to what happened in court. It does not solve the drafting-accuracy problem, which is about a party’s ability to act immediately on what the court just said. Those are different problems, and the personal-recording ban is now the narrower, more defensible piece of unfinished business.
The distinction that matters: four different acts, not one
The strongest objection to relaxing Rule 4-401.02 isn’t that courtroom proceedings are private—most family law hearings are open to the public, and information doesn’t become confidential because it was spoken instead of filed. The strongest objection is that an audio file can be clipped, captioned, stripped of context, and distributed in ways that live observation cannot. A tentative comment can be presented as a final ruling. A frustrated aside can circulate without the explanation that followed it. Family law practitioners have seen this: recordings weaponized between former spouses, sent to children, selectively shared with evaluators or therapists, or posted online to embarrass the other party.
That risk is real, but it’s an argument for regulating what can be done with a recording, not for banning the recording itself. Four distinct acts are currently governed by one absolute prohibition:
- making a recording;
- using it privately to prepare pleadings, proposed orders, or appellate materials;
- sharing it with other participants in the case; and
- publishing, editing, or distributing it to the public.
Those present different risks and warrant different treatment. A rule permitting (1) and (2) while restricting (3) and (4)—with violations addressed through contempt, sanctions, protective orders, evidentiary exclusion, or professional discipline—captures the benefit without the exposure.
The official record stays authoritative either way
Rule 4-201 already establishes what counts as the official record: a video or audio recording system maintained by the court under 4-201(1)(A), or a certified court reporter if the court approves one under 4-201(1)(C). Nothing about permitting a litigant’s personal recording changes that. If the parties dispute the wording of a proposed order, the court resolves it by reference to the official recording, the clerk’s minutes, or its own notes—not a party’s phone. A personal recording would supplement the record for drafting purposes; it would not become the record.
It’s also worth addressing directly why 4-201(1)(C)’s court-reporter option isn’t an adequate substitute. It requires advance court approval, it isn’t uniformly available across judicial districts, it adds cost the client bears, and it does nothing for the party who wasn’t expecting an oral ruling with drafting-relevant detail until the hearing was underway. A personal recording is available by default, at no incremental cost, in every hearing a party is already required to attend.
What the rule change would actually look like
Reform here doesn’t require rewriting Rule 4-401.02 from scratch. It requires a narrow exception. Illustrative language, for discussion:
Rule 4-401.02(3)(C)(i): A person may not use a portable electronic device to record, photograph, or transmit images or sound of court proceedings, except in accordance with rule 4-401.01, subsection (2)(D) above, or subsection (6) below.
*****
(6) Personal recording for litigation purposes. A party or the party’s counsel may make an audio recording of a public court proceeding in which the party is a participant, for use in preparing pleadings, proposed orders, or appellate materials in that case. A recording made under this subsection: (a) is not part of the official record and does not supersede the record maintained under Rule 4-201; (b) may not be shared with anyone other than a participant in the case without prior court approval; and (c) may not be published, broadcast, or distributed to the public. The court may prohibit or restrict recording under this subsection in a specific proceeding for good cause, including protection of a minor, a victim, or other sensitive information.
That’s a starting point, not a finished proposal—it would need Judicial Council review and public comment like any UCJA amendment—but it gives a rules committee something concrete to react to instead of a general call for “presumptive permission.”
Where this leaves things
HB 540 fixed the transparency half of this problem: the public, and parties specifically, now have a fast, free path to the official recording of a public court proceeding once it exists. Rule 4-401.02 still blocks the other half—a party’s ability to make a contemporaneous recording of their own hearing for the purpose of doing the work the court just assigned them. Courts demand precision from lawyers who prepare proposed orders. There’s no remaining justification, after HB 540, for denying those lawyers the one tool that would let them meet that standard the same day.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277