RFP Title: Closed Captioning Services
RFP Number: BAP-2025-08-TK
REQUEST FOR
PROPOSALS
JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF CALIFORNIA
REGARDING:
RFP BAP-2025-08-TK Closed Captioning Services
PROPOSALS DUE:
May 1st, 2026, NO LATER THAN 1:00 P.M. PACIFIC TIME
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rev December 2025
RFP Title: Closed Captioning Services
RFP Number: BAP-2025-08-TK
1.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
1.1. The Judicial Council of California (“Judicial Council” or “the council”), chaired by
the Chief Justice of California, is the policy-making agency of the California judicial
system. The California Constitution directs the council to improve the administration
of justice by surveying judicial business, recommending improvements to the courts,
and making recommendations annually to the Governor and the Legislature. The
council also adopts rules for court administration, practice, and procedure, and
performs other functions prescribed by law. The council’s staff assists both the
council and its chair in performing their duties for the purpose of this Request for
Proposal (“RFP”).1
1.2. The Superior Court system in California comprises 58 trial courts, one in each
county. Trial courts provide a forum for resolution of criminal and civil cases under
state and local laws. As used within this RFP, the term “trial court” is used
synonymously with Superior Court or Court.
1.3. This RFP is being issued by the Judicial Council, on behalf of itself, the Supreme
Court of California, the Courts of Appeal, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center and
the 58 Superior Courts of California (collectively, “Judicial Branch Entities,” or
“JBEs” and individually, a “JBE”).
1.4. The council seeks the services of a qualified vendor to provide full-scale, real-time
verbatim closed-captioning services to the Judicial Branch Entities. The services will
include full-scale, real-time verbatim closed captioning of proceedings and other live
and pre-recorded meetings, media, and forums, including, but not limited to, those
described in sections 2.0 (Services) and 3.0 (Deliverables) of this RFP.
1.5. Captioning Services must be performed in the United States and provided by a
vendor who has a presence in the United States.
1.6. The Judicial Council has estimated its requirements for Captioning Services to be up
to, but not limited to, 150 hours of Captioning Services for each one-year period.
Distribution of these hours over the calendar year will be variable and generally
unpredictable. This estimate does not include potential Captioning Services for the
other JBEs. An example of the Judicial Council’s captioning needs in 2026 is
provided below:2
Supreme Court events: Note that these are reserved dates. As the events get closer,
the Supreme Court usually reduces the days down from 5 days to 3, 2, or 1 day of
oral argument and captioning is typically 6 hours/day.
1 Capitalized terms used throughout this RFP are defined in the context of the RFP or in section 8.0 (Defined
Terms). The summary of terms in this RFP is qualified in its entirety by the more detailed information contained in
the Terms and Conditions.
2 Note that the contract period is estimated to begin July 1, 2026, and prior dates serve to illustrate an annual
example only.
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RFP Title: Closed Captioning Services
RFP Number: BAP-2025-08-TK
January 5-9, 2026
February 2-6, 2026
March 2-6, 2026
April 6-10, 2026
May 4-8, 2026
May 18-22, 2026
June 1-5, 2026
September 8-11, 2026
October 5-9, 2026
November 2-6, 2026
December 7-11, 2026
Judicial Council events: (Note that these usually only need captioning on one of the
reserved days for 2-4 hours.)
February 19-20, 2026
April 23-24, 2026
July 16-17, 2026
October 15-16, 2026
December 10-11, 2026
1.7. The Judicial Council anticipates awarding a master agreement for an initial three-year
term, with two consecutive one-year options for a potential maximum of five years
(“Master Agreement”). Each of the two option terms may be exercised at the Judicial
Council’s sole discretion. Any resulting contract is estimated to be effective from
July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029.
1.8. The Judicial Branch Entities will be under no obligation to participate in any resulting
Master Agreement or to issue any work orders under any resulting Master
Agreement. Any Judicial Branch Entity shall have the right to place orders under the
resulting Master Agreement by entering into a Participating Addendum with the
vendor). For the Judicial Council (the “Establishing JBE”), no additional
Participating Addendum is necessary.
1.9. The Judicial Council does not guarantee that the selected vendor will receive a
specific volume of work, a specific total amount, or a specific order value under the
awarded Master Agreement for these services. Additionally, there will be no limit on
the number of orders the Judicial Council or a Judicial Branch Entity may issue under
the Master Agreement, nor will there be any specific limitation on the quantity, and
maximum value of individual orders.
2.0 SERVICES
2.1 The purpose of this RFP is to provide the JBEs with full-scale, real-time verbatim
closed-captioning services as further described herein. Captioning Services must meet
Americans with Disabilities Act and the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) 2.1 rule requirements to improve viewer comprehension and engagement.
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RFP Title: Closed Captioning Services
RFP Number: BAP-2025-08-TK
2.2 JBEs may elect, but are not required, to purchase Captioning Services under the
Master Agreement. JBEs that elect to purchase Captioning Services under the Master
Agreement will enter into a Participating Addendum, substantially in the form of the
sample Participating Addendum provided in Attachment 2 (Judicial Council Standard
Terms and Conditions) with the vendor.
2.3 Subject to the terms and conditions of the Master Agreement, each Participating
Addendum will set forth the specific services, deliverables, schedule, and any specific
requirements (such as invoicing) for the individual JBE. Each Participating
Addendum will constitute a separate independent contract between the vendor and
the JBE signing the Participating Addendum.
2.4 The Master Agreement will be nonexclusive. The Judicial Council may have other
agreements for the same or similar services, and each JBE reserves the right to
provide or have others provide the same or similar services.
2.5 During the term of the Master Agreement, vendor must provide an account manager
to oversee the agreement, captioning requests, billing, and be responsive to any
technical or customer service needs that arise. Vendor must be able to provide on-call
technical support during live caption events; and program manager shall be available
during conventional business hours, generally between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
Pacific Time, Monday through Friday.
2.6 Vendor shall sign-in to live caption events at least 10 minutes prior to the scheduled
starting time and shall stay on until its conclusion, even if it runs longer than the
scheduled time.
2.7 Vendor must invoice according to specific assignments and Accounting Codes
provided by any resulting Work Order or Purchase Order.
3.0 DELIVERABLES
3.1 Captioning and transcripts must be a word-for-word representation of the project’s
audio, even if they are grammatically incorrect or the speaker false starts or changes
direction mid-sentence.
A. The quality of captioning and unedited transcripts must not exceed an error
rate of five percent (5%) for the duration of live real-time events.
B. The quality of captioning and edited transcripts must not exceed an error rate
of 0.1 percent (0.1%) for pre-recorded projects.
C. The accuracy of Captioning Services provided under the Master Agreement
will be the sole responsibility of the vendor. Vendor must explain how
accuracy rating is monitored and determined for both captioning and
transcripts.
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RFP Title: Closed Captioning Services
RFP Number: BAP-2025-08-TK
3.2 Captioning with Unedited Caption Transcript Files
The vendor must have a fixed hourly rate for Captioning Services that come with
unedited captioning transcript, inclusive of .smi and .docx (or equivalent) file types.
The vendor must provide, at no additional charge, an unedited captioning transcript
which will be emailed to the JBE no later than one (1) Business Day after conclusion
of live real-time events. Unedited transcripts shall be provided to the JBE, upon
request, up to one (1) year after the date of the event at no additional cost.
3.3 Captioning with Edited Caption Transcript Files
A. The vendor shall provide edited caption transcripts in an accepted file
format. Edited caption transcripts must be in the English language. The
vendor must have a fixed hourly rate for Captioning Services that come with
edited caption transcripts, inclusive of .smi and .docx (or equivalent) file
types.
B. The vendor may be required to provide edited caption transcripts in Spanish,
Vietnamese, Cantonese, Tagalog, and Mandarin, which must be in a required
file format. The vendor must have a fixed hourly rate for Captioning
Services that come with edited caption transcripts, by language inclusive of
.smi and .docx (or equivalent) file types.
C. Edited caption transcripts and files must be completed and delivered to the
JBE within one (1) Business Day per hour of a live real-time captioning; or
within one (1) Business Day per hour of pre-recorded project work. For
example:
Five-hour live real-time captioning event:
5 hour event x 1 Business Day per hour/event = edited caption
transcripts due to JBE in 5 Business Days.
Ten-hour pre-recorded project:
10 hour pre-recorded project x 1 Business Day per hour/project =
edited caption transcripts due to JBE in 10 Business Days.
D. All edited transcripts, inclusive of all file types and languages on the Work
Order shall be provided to JBE, upon request, after the date of the event and
for up to one (1) year at no additional cost.
E. The vendor must be able to produce edited caption transcripts from unedited
caption transcripts for an additional fixed hourly rate, inclusive of .docx (or
equivalent) file type. Requests for this post-event activity will be requested
via Work Order and follow timeframes for pre-recorded work projects.
3.4 The caption transcripts, both edited and unedited, must be provided in the following
professional formats:
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This is the opportunity summary page. It provides an overview of this opportunity and a preview of the attached documentation.
