Stenonymous Court Reporting Forecast 2026: The Optimistic U

I have had quite a few prospective students reach out as to whether this is right for them, my statements and research with regard to the field.

Forgive me, Anonymous, but I put some thought into my reply to you, and I wanted to share it, in part, so that it’s easy to reference in the future.

Anonymous wrote, in brief, that they were looking into the field, but concerned by the unbridled optimism in the face of ASR / AI developments in the past three years.

(Yes I’m heavily editorializing so that identities are kept secret.)

“Stenonymous, advice please.”

 “I will try to find the right words. 

I do believe, wholeheartedly, there will be successful stenographers, probably farther into the future than a lot of people are thinking right now. But the data as I understand it points to fewer of us. No Bureau of Labor Statistics job growth and our retirements being divided between steno, voice, digital, and AI companies. I do not see a way out of that crunch beyond increasing demand for steno, which could probably be done with a good media campaign budget, but we’re busy burning our money collectively on the National Court Reporters Association. And such is the nature of organizations, when their membership dips too low they’ll be forced to downsize, disband, or open up to voice and digital and pray they get some more members, so it’s really a shame because you have all these people contributing to a thing that is at its core a chameleon that will blend in with whatever way the wind pushes it. Meanwhile, if they all blew hard enough, the wind would probably push the other way. And I get to sit back and say “okay, well, I guess we’re doing this.”

[REDACTED], I don’t know what the boots on the ground say, but the Ducker Report had a stenographer gap of [REDACTED] as of 2018 forecasted (forecasted in 2013). Obviously it should be more now just by the nature of how the retirement cliff works. I would get an honest assessment from different people in [REDACTED] and check for jobs straight up. Right now might be a good time to get in. Five years from now maybe not so much. The time scale is really where I’m fuzzy, because certain things are happening slower than anticipated and certain things are happening faster than anticipated, and without the funding to make it my full-time job, I can’t track every state’s job market. 

So, for example, I’m aware generally that there are a lot more AI companies than I thought there would be in our space if we go back maybe 5 years ago. But the adoption in some areas is slower and more measured than I anticipated. Though arbitrations very quickly seemed to move away from us, so that couldn’t have helped (people still get arbitrations but the atmosphere is different now for many.) 

So… yeah…look, if [REDACTED] is booming and you think you can snag a niche out there, by all means, roll with it. Or whatever market is close to you. Some really big investors are coming into the space and there’s probably some money making opportunity there that we don’t even talk about because it’s not directly related to court reporting. But if you start looking and you see maybe there’s not so much room for growth, then it’s not a safe bet, because I genuinely believe it’s going to get worse (for working reporters) before it gets better. 

Sorry to info dump on you. Feel free to reach out any time you think I can help.”

I should perhaps add, for those that don’t regularly follow my work, that this loss in number is not inherently bad for working reporters. It is horrible for our students and schools. Putting that aside, the primary issue is that the corporations can use the fragmented market to divide and conquer, compete us down against each other in a race to the bottom, and in fact have a financial incentive to do so. And did so in the past when there was even less corporate consolidation than there is today.

If you sat at a massive table with every other court reporter in the business and we said to the room, “you can now reach into the pocket of the person seated next to you and pull out $50,” how many in the room do you think would break the chain? How does that number change as $50 becomes $5000, becomes $50 million? You start reading and realizing that those are the numbers we’re dealing with, and that those are the kinds of resources tied up in these legal transcripts. Then you read about insurance, and Uber, and all these other tangential industries trying to put the crunch on litigation and litigation fees, and you realize that if things go badly we could see a contraction in the job market.

Anyway, my bold prediction is that absent some colossal change in trajectory, we will see a drop in job satisfaction. Depending on our ability to organize politically, I am optimistically hopeful that that job satisfaction will rise again in my lifetime.

P.S.

Working on my political manifesto. Very pro-America.