Lexitas has a new product called Deposition Insights. Seems like it makes automated deposition digests, something that used to be the domain of paralegals from all I know. Overall, I don’t really care about this product because other companies are already doing this and there’s no realistic way to stop it from occurring unless I get more funding and can hire people to investigate how good it really is. Probably not happening. Moving on.
While I don’t particularly care about the existence of the product, I do care very much about stenographer gullibility. Somebody said they were really happy it only comes with purchase of a transcript. I don’t have anything against that person. It’s a fair feeling by itself. But Stenonymous is, in part, about looking at things in the context of history.
So here goes.
1. Given that they are one of four or five national agencies, they could get in trouble with tying products under the antitrust laws at some point. This would be legal pressure to untie the products, much the same way I hope to pressure NCRA to untie its membership from its certs.
2. This is a statement, not an enforceable guarantee. Veritext made a statement in 2019 that stenographers were the life-blood of the industry.
Veritext proceeded to join in on the efforts of a fraud nonprofit that used its influence to exaggerate and exacerbate the stenographer shortage; mislead jobseekers, consumers, and court reporters; and advertise digital court reporting relentlessly for the better part of the next half decade.
So let’s look at the history of our field for a second. These companies have relentlessly lied and cheated, even allegedly stealing from their own employees. U.S. Legal itself bought and killed Stenotrain while crying shortage. Every step of the way we’ve been lied to by companies that have assured us “no, no, no, we’re not going to get rid of you! You’re valuable to us!”
Simply put, how long before clients ask for Deposition Insights without buying the transcript? Because that’s about how long you’ve got before they untie the product and this statement goes down as another agency lie.
Writing’s on the wall folks. Believe the comfortable lie over the cold truth if you’d like. I study propaganda for fun. Agency propaganda has been fooling stenographers for decades. Seems that despite my efforts it will continue to.
Addendum:
I later saw a posting that convinced me the person I was speaking about above is not in fact gullible. My apologies for putting things the way I did.