Well, first what’s confirmed out of the way, BlueLedge is a qualified vendor right on NCRA’s website. BlueLedge being a leading digital court reporting training outfit famously integrated into Veritext’s pipeline.
I’ll be honest. I told my source I didn’t know about it, but it doesn’t surprise me. The National Court Reporters Association can’t really discriminate against BlueLedge without risking another antitrust lawsuit. And to be honest, the course as advertised by BlueLedge meets CEU requirements.
This being a real reason I support moving a good deal of our overall funding to individuals and companies that can actually speak out against bad business practices — such as BlueLedge gaining a presence on college websites across America through Ed 2 Go — rather than basically be forced to work with them and advertise them. But what do I know? I’m just a guy that documented all this in years gone by.
Moving on, I got a long email from an anonymous source. In short, it alleges that Veritext has “just bought” Kentuckiana Court Reporting, which encompasses Kentuckiana, Churchill Reporting, Kentucky Court Reporters, Pike Court Reporting, TriStar Court Reporting, and Milestone Court Reporting. Veritext itself has not yet advertised this alleged acquisition. The email mentions that there may be a lot of internal turmoil, with digitals preparing to flee if they “lose benefits,” the case apparently being that Kentuckiana keeps digitals as regular employees and that Veritext tends not to.
The main theme: “Students should be warned that Veritext will be headhunting them, and what to expect from them and what their reputation is.”
To be even more frank, students, here’s what to expect from most corporations: When they need you, the relationship is good, even often weighted in some way in your favor. But they are always working on reworking that relationship to a point where they don’t really need you, and as that happens, you can expect rates to freeze/fall or work to be withheld in favor of giving it to others who will do it cheaper. And as corporate consolidation of the court reporting industry continues, we can expect that the pool of satisfied reporters will become smaller.
In summary, you will be told there is a shortage and you are very needed right up until there is a digital reporter and transcriber ready to replace you for less. And if there never is, congratulations, they likely had you doing it cheaper.
Of course, as with all things, the truth is nuanced and layered. But take this as a very direction-of-the-river-absent-other-information type of post. Good luck.
Hi, Chris. How would refusing to allow Blue Ledge to be a “sanctioned” vendor be considered an antitrust violation? NCRA is an association of STENO reporters. FFS, we don’t even allow voice writers in. How can we be sued for not allowing digitals in?
So my vague understanding is NCRA does have or can be alleged to have monopoly power as far as court reporting associations go, and as was certainly the case in the antitrust lawsuit they got sued in.
They have objective qualifications for CEUs that this program, from my brief review of the outline, almost certainly meets.
So basically the logic follows is that if they lock this vendor out despite it meeting those objective criteria, it looks a lot more like group boycott or using its influence to lock them out of, in this case, the court reporting education market. These things would be problematic under antitrust laws. Though I am admittedly not a lawyer and only know what has been articulated by people in power over the years.
So NCRA does not have to admit digital reporters, except for perhaps whatever membership they might be entitled to under the bylaws (non-voting).
But the NCRA does have to be cautious about who it locks out of court reporting education and why. Especially because BlueLedge and Veritext have powerful friends.
I have serious gripes about NCRA, but I believe if the people in power were honest, this would more or less be their response. And I do think they’d be mostly correct, or at least correctly erring on the side of caution, in this particular case.
Wait… So correct me if I’m wrong, but does this mean BlueLedge using the threat of an antitrust lawsuit against a professional organization that’s standing in the way of the monopoly they and Veritext are trying to build?
If you wrote it as fiction, it would be too comedic to be believed.
I wouldn’t say they’re using the threat. More so that the threat is inherent to the situation. But yes. It is something, isn’t it?