National Court Reporters Association Files Reply In Support of Motion to Dismiss Antitrust Complaint

Christopher Day

1 year ago

The official music track for this post is here.

Some time ago I consulted with a law firm about the tying of the National Court Reporters Association’s certifications to its membership, possibly in violation of antitrust laws. I’m not privy to what happened afterwards except that they apparently found plaintiffs and are attempting to move forward with a class action. I got my hands on NCRA’s reply in support of the motion to dismiss and I’ve decided to share it.

Having only read a sliver of it, I must say it’s comical that they call the membership and certification inseparable. Anybody with a few brain cells can see that it’d be easy to separate out the testing and CEUs from the membership. The NCRA simply doesn’t want to because it would cost them money. I’m hopeful that the court sees through such a ruse and the lawsuit survives the pleading stage, because at that point they’ve boxed themselves into a corner of “yes, our membership is tied to certification [in violation of antitrust law.]”

I have no reservations about where I stand. In the question of institutional loyalty versus loyalty to my fellow court reporters, I choose my fellow court reporters. And I’ll clip a comment from Facebook that lays out some of what I think of when I think of NCRA.

This refers to Jim Cudahy leaving NCRA to return under the Speech-to-Text Institute years later, the fact that Dave Wenhold manages probably a dozen organizations and therefore by definition cannot be invested in court reporting in the way we need him to be at this critical moment, the decline of court jobs on NCRA’s watch, and the decades-old lie that court reporters cannot discuss rates.

There is a certain cult-like thinking in court reporting where we believe in people and organizations that are clearly failing us. This is due in large part to propaganda. Being something of a propaganda expert that has used propaganda to tell the truth and raise consumer awareness, I must point out that if we do not break free from this de facto mind control, we will collectively walk off a cliff that there’s no climbing back from.

I must point out that with the kind of funding court reporters pour into the NCRA and Dave Wenhold’s pocket, Stenonymous could disrupt corporate propaganda dragging down your incomes, and has proven that in the past through the annihilation of the Speech-to-Text Institute, a venture that was backed by all the biggest names in the business including Stenograph and Veritext — and a direct threat to the prevalence of machine shorthand reporting.

I must point out that you can make a donation today on the front page of Stenonymous.com.

If change from within is not forthcoming, change from without is the only path forward.