Following my exposition of US Legal’s deception regarding the stenographer shortage and Verbit’s complete lack of professional standards, it seems companies are dropping the ruse and just pressing onward with digital despite the fact that it is less efficient and will hurt minorities. They continue to assume that the legal profession will turn a blind eye to this assault on a field of 88% women, the legal profession’s consumer choice, and the rights of the legal profession’s clients. They continue to assume lawyers aren’t intelligent enough to catch onto the cost shifting game. They continue to assume that court reporters will sit back, shut up, and let it happen.
But you don’t need to read about any of that. All you need to do is look at the disparity in treatment.
Naegeli wants to pay you $1.75 per page even though you are almost certainly already working for less than you were 30 years ago adjusted for inflation on the east coast and west coast.
US Legal, continuing with its blatant dishonesty, advertises that it uses CSRs, CERs, and CVRs. The CSR is typically a license which is required in some states. The other two are certifications by AAERT and NVRA. This seems to be a deliberate, subtle move to take attention off the NCRA. Their contempt for the NCRA is obvious to the industry expert, but their website looks nice and probably fools the uneducated consumer into feeling like there’s an equivalency. Remember, NCRA is larger than the other two. You can look up the tax returns on Pro Publica. there’s no reason to omit the RPR, and they did.
Planet Depos, like the rest of the liars, claims that its use of digital reporters is out of need.
Yet they cannot be bothered to post a single stenographic reporter position.
Even Esquire wants to see us relegated to the role of transcriber rather than spend any real time or effort recruiting for the field.
Veritext can’t decide if it does or doesn’t want digital reporting to replace stenography.
But I have to be honest, the materials they’ve produced for digital reporters seem far more expansive and professionally done than anything I got from an agency as a freelancer. 20 year old me got told “go into the room, take the job” by Jaguar Reporting in 2010 for a “luxurious” $2.80 a page. Compare that to the handholding companies are now willing to do to build digital.
This situation is so dire that a Nebraskan reporter sent me a chart of page rates compared to the consumer price index for urban consumers. The blue is what YOU are paying to BE ALIVE. and the ORANGE is what you are being paid.
There is hope. Many of these are likely zombie companies. They probably aren’t making a profit. They are propped up by investor money, loans, or other cash flow. You are probably a normal person who thinks about money and success linearly. “Look how many companies they’re buying or how big they are. They must be doing really well!” But there is far more to money and success in this modern world. Let’s take a company that we know makes millions of dollars on the digital side, like VIQ Solutions.
With $8 million in revenue in a quarter and $12 million in cash on hand, they’re a real beast. None of you has that kind of money, right?
But they’re losing between $1 million and $8 million a quarter. That’s kind of like paying a reporter $8 a page and charging a lawyer $4 a page. If you made a dollar in profit this year, you’re operating a more stable model than them.
Right out of the gate, we have evidence that this digital stuff doesn’t work out too well. It’s a money pit for investors. And we are not alone. real estate, driving, and interpreting are all industries under pressure from irresponsible companies.
Want more hope? They’re all barreling into a shortage situation of their own. With Verbit’s admissions that it could take 3 to 8 transcribers to fulfill the role of one stenographic court reporter, I had theorized that it would be very difficult for companies to find the manpower they need for the digital transition. We now know that’s true because the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity said as much in their FAQ. Thanks, AHDI!
But the beautiful thing about us as people is that we do not have to be complicit in this investor fraud and attack on justice. I asked for help to create a consumer awareness campaign, and all of you put down cold, hard cash to get our issues in front of 100,000 people and many news outlets. We are not going unheard. This issue is not going unnoticed.
Look at what you were all able to do in one week.
Look at what the people that you work with every day really feel about you when they hear about what you are being subjected to.
Now I have to ask for some more favors. You can do any of it or all of it. But I can just about guarantee that if enough of us take part, our timeless profession survives this decade and perhaps emerges stronger than it was in 1993 when there were reportedly 6,000 certified reporters and 40,000 unlicensed reporters in the State of California alone.
- Get into NCRA and PRO Link. I understand people’s gripes about the organization, but right now having a robust national directory of stenographers will blow away shortage myths. Members also need to push to get the organization to open up its wallet and do some serious advertising on our behalf. To put this into perspective, there are only 364 New York reporters listed in PRO Link. Meanwhile, I happen to know there were over a thousand reporters employed by NYSUCS as of 2019. We’re not shrinking THAT much, we’re separated. The apathy is really killing us, and we are quite frankly in a position where we must stand together or be hung separately.
2. Tell people about this field. Point them to NCRA A to Z, Project Steno, and Open Steno. Tell them about CRAH, StarTran Online, Simply Steno, or whatever program you happen to favor. Just to give you an idea of the kind of impact you can have, one unpopular answer on Quora can get 85 views. Multiply that by 27,000 stenographers on all the different platforms we use and people we speak to.
3. Support your state associations. NCRA simply does not have the resources or willpower to have a presence in each state. They are our national unifier, but for state issues, we need state associations to be powerful. As a board member of New York State Court Reporters Association earlier this year, I was constantly perplexed by how to make an impact with basically no funding. Management cost was somewhere in the range of $30,000 annually plus overages. There were only maybe 300 members. It was like trying to buy a $2 stick of gum with $1. This is in the context of a state we KNOW has at least 2,000 stenographic court reporters. That’s kind of like walking into the store with your rich uncle and him going “oh, you don’t have money for gum? That’s too bad.” The NYSCRA board of 2021 showed everyone what an association can do with almost no money when it joined forces with New York unions and got word to the courts that utilizing automatic trial transcription would implode the access to justice. Imagine what will be possible in every state with more participation and funding. Board members are generally reporters just like you, and they need your support to make the right call, which is why I did not encourage people to abandon PCRA months ago despite all my frustration with that situation.
4. Support a nonprofit like Protect Your Record Project. Their consumer awareness work has been an injection of pure courage into a field that was terrified of speaking out. There was a time where I was very uncomfortable suggesting that. I thought “if we divide the dollars, we divide the strength.” I was wrong. Slimmer nonprofits serve an important role. They can do, say, and commit to things that member associations simply do not prioritize. There is no doubt some similarity in the consumer awareness work of STRONG and PYRP, but I’ve come to realize we are all basically on the same side, and that realization is why I am unafraid of using this blog to promote whatever’s clever for all of us.
5. Entrepreneurs, give these businesses some competition. Verbit can’t decide if it’s based in New York, Delaware, or Israel and still managed to get over $100 million in investor money. It’s time to let investors know not only are they backing a losing horse, there’s a stable return waiting for them in stenography. This is a $3 billion industry and it’s time we took this fight to the funding arena. Once the faucet starts pouring on steno, investors will get wise to what a sham digital reporting is today, and the people responsible will be held accountable go on to attempt to wreck some other industry.
6. Share the press release with news people. I can only reach so many by myself.
7. Make complaints where appropriate. Where companies are violating the law, we need attorneys general and executive bodies to know about it.
8. Share this article with lawyers and local bar associations. They deserve at least some small warning that they are being duped.
9. Share this article with your fellow reporter. A lot of them will have the same misconceptions about success that I mentioned earlier. If reporters feel hopeless, they won’t take action. It’s a different world when you expose the card house and tell them “blow a little bit and it might fall over.”
10. Reach out to digital court reporters and transcribers and let them know to try steno. If we lose, they will be the next generation of exploited and abused workers. Every stenographer we recruit is one that they don’t get to do that to.
11. Send me data. The more I publish, the less likely your fellow reporter will be taken advantage of. This blog is possible thanks to contributions of money and information. Do not ever think that I view myself as independently successful. I am very aware of how much Stenonymous relies on all of you.
12. Reach out to young reporters and students, and let them know you are available to help. Despite the shortage claims, professionals sponsored and bought lunch for an unprecedented number of students at our 2021 convention. This is a scary time for them. They’re largely going to be relying on you to do all the things I just mentioned and hand this field to them intact. Add to that the general stress of steno school and we have ourselves the perfect storm to scare people away from this field. We need them to know we are fighting not just so they have a job but that it will be the best damn decision of their lives just like it was for so many of us.
This is an ongoing situation. It’s not resolving in a day or week. If you feel yourself slipping into an uncomfortable place, take some time off, don’t worry about it, and come back when you’re ready. That’s pretty much the advice two reporters I love gave me when I was feeling low. Now I get to thank them by sharing it with everyone. Take care of yourselves first. We’ll keep this ship sailing till you get back.
Seeing an email from Stenonymous first thing in the morning, I get a little excited with anticipation of reading it, like Christmas morning! This is another gem! Thank you!
Hopefully this more fully explains our beef. Thank you!
Best article on this subject ever! Thank you for all of the work, time and effort you put into publishing this article. I am sharing it with all of my friends today.
Thank you very much!
Can you tell me why two of the counties in Fl are putting in Courtscribe and the pitch was impressed. They are using them next month for a huge 3 week daily case How do they do this and get out the trpts? I think they are going to staff it round the clock and make it look doable to get the chief judge to say this is the way to go Probably lowered the price for this
I can’t tell you what the deal is because I wasn’t present, but it seems likely based on the available data that they would take a loss to get the business, push us out, and then jack up the price when we’re gone. Maybe if you alert the courts to that they’ll start thinking twice. You can literally show them VIQ and go “look, it’s happening.”
This is just awesome!
Thanks for the ongoing clarity, Christopher…. another great piece….