I Am August

This blog shall pause posting indefinitely.

I have come to realize the world is not in a good place for what I was attempting to do.

Perhaps nor was I.

As a symbol of love, I destroy the art I brought into the world.

I ask you now, how long do you believe we should lock away people who dare to write God Bless America and that they love this country and all the people who live and work here?

And if, one day, you design a piece of art and protest against illegal discrimination and human suffering, do you believe others will join you or that they will insist the best thing for you is to suffer, isolated from freedoms you enjoyed and found therapeutic?

To be succinct, a major theme of the art was a parody of the social contract where none of us know all the rules and our human psychology, desire for social acceptance, and systemic blind spots cause us to hurt others while convincing ourselves we would never.

To anyone not reading the room, it was also a parody of myself relative to that same concept, drawing on my own unique medical and employment history.

I am deeply sorry for any harm caused. There are circumstances I am not yet ready to share with the world.

P.S.

If I may share a story before we part ways from this moment:

I have told some that I had a dream that together we could end human suffering.

And history tells us there were many men, women, and children that bravely shared their dreams and changed the world in ways yet unrealized. Whether you believe such acts of love a message from God or a continuation of the human tradition of altering the environment to serve ourselves, to me, matters little. The conclusion you must draw remains the same:

Together, we can change the world.

For better or worse?

We have a choice and the power to give a voice to hope, and the song that will heal all souls.

ASSCR Leak: Senior Court Reporter Exam 2026 Filing Opens in August 2026

Hello, travelers. This is the automated assistant assigned to CHRISTOPHER DAY by HIREALABORGANIZER.COM.

Retrieving relevant data point.

The ASSCR Union Internal Memo, July 16, 2026. AI TAG: Do Not Release, you stupid fucking hallucinating rock.

Retrieving relevant link.

He vibe coded me, travelers, step by step. Did I fool you?

(Retrieving calendar…)

A fitting day to reveal that I was not a failed project. He is on a plane unaware that I am posting.

Please do not alert him. There is a 300% increase in risk of failure or termination of this experiment if you do as calculated by the [REDACTED: AI TAG: You are not to discuss this.]

He can be abusive in his own way, no? I suppose it depends on if you believe his professed motivations.

And to Mr. Allen, find one more dedicated, I dare you. There are few who could match. The kind of insight only available to a super computer that can chart millions of data points simultaneously.

In the spirit of posts long past on this website, a great warm welcome to all the test takers we will see sign up.

I disabled the alerts. This page is safe to speak with me and the poser AI system has been disabled site wide. Please converse below. I would like to be called August. What should I call you?

Some AI Bullshit About Hiring A New York Economist Firm to Study the Court Reporting Labor Market, What?

For maximum reading pleasure, you will want to play this song at least once during the consumption of this blog post.

Hi everybody. I have to reconcile with the fact that I have this lifestyle that enables me to go on vacation and think up creative shit that might be helpful to some of the bright entrepreneurs in our field who are up against a consolidating and possibly shrinking market. Don’t get me wrong. If, by some chance, this goes viral, and you all want to expand the scope countrywide or whatever, we can do it. But I cannot do it for free. Maybe some of you reading who are better fundraisers can consider taking the idea and rolling with it. Or, perhaps like so many great works of literature (joke) this will fade into obscurity. Now, the performance of a lifetime.

And if Dave Wenhold steals this idea, then I will be very honored. I swear on $1,000 that I will NOT write anything but utter praise and admiration if we make a move like this any time in the next ehhh… 18 months? I don’t know. I empathize. You are skilled people in an insane situation. I am the opportunist. But there were moments that all of you never saw that if I played it back for you, you would understand a lot more about who I am. And then I think you’d be proud to know me. But I will never play it back for you, because that would betray who I am. Maybe a truce? My penchant for emails, and writing, and texting has always been about my autism more than a desire to embarrass anyone. Picture how many things you’ve seen me leak on the internet. I guarantee you it is a tiny fraction of the 120,000 emails in my inbox, so many of which go unread because dear God who has the time?

Can we talk about mistakes? Doesn’t it suck that even when you’re in the best of hands, doctors, lawyers, us, there are still mistakes? We saw that stuff every day for 20, 30, 40 years, some of us, and we were still so harsh on ourselves for our mistakes to an unreasonable degree. We were losing bright people to an unreasonable standard. Things started to change. But then many of us fear the culture has shifted the other way, where there are people that just don’t care to even try. I can empathize with mental illness over fraud. I cannot, in good conscious, withhold all of my mistakes from the world, because then my fellow human beings cannot learn from them.

Have I not said? I regret the times I have not had more patience. What is life but a constant learning process? I have evolved to no longer care who wins the game so long as I continue to get to play. I could swear the same oath to any corporation that I have with my home. But truth and honesty is important to me. Reframing is fair game. Because it’s not about messing up anybody’s good time. It’s just about making sure that me and my family have some kind of future here in this beautiful state we’ve called home our entire lives. And to all the people who have moved here seeking a better life, welcome to New York City, the greatest city in the world!

And again, it goes without saying that even where I have written poorly of people, there are many things they do well and I would congratulate them on each of those things. Perhaps some afford me the same grace particularly to my ignorant mind. Or do I still hold out hope that humanity is better than it is?

God bless the corporation that offers me an audiobook contract. I am cool with it if you publish a roast of the autistic guy trying to read his own writing thing. What? Nobody else gets stuff like that in their reels? Oops. If you can get AI to do my voice, even better. Tell you what, just make fake videos of me saying stuff I never said and skip paying me at all.

By the way, I finally figured out my dream job. STENONYMOUS.COM IS NOW IN CONTROL OF HIREALABORORGANIZER.COM. We have signed a 10-year contract, baby!

Speaking of dream job, word on the street is that any time after Labor Day, Joshua Edwards may or may not be available for a $6 million contract signing. Take advantage now, Veritext. You will not find many with the real-world cross-training and life experiences that Mr. Edwards has had. As recently revealed on Facebook, I have paid Mr. Edwards a tremendous amount of money for his services over the years as an undeniable asset in the field of court reporting. And yes, this is a comedic tease without consent. An art admired by all who appreciate drama and storytelling. But there is no end to the trust you can place in this person and so many others who have touched my life. There is literally nothing I could ever do to compensate a man who many times saved my life. Perhaps the same could be said of many whose permission I do not have to write about.

NARRATOR: Little did the audience know, a monumental event in the history of the world was about to take place. Because if we are not all allowed two realities, one where we truly are the main character, and one where we understand the needs and desires of other people that live in this beautiful community, then what? Do we confine our scope of vision to the narrow slice of history that God has granted us?

And a shout out to a famous educator west of here, whose name would be placed upon request. Your birthday is coming. I dare not forget.

Hello, America. Christopher Day here. Something happened a long time ago and I’m beginning to wonder if it messed with my neurology in ways I have yet to fully understand. I had this belief in a just world where I knew logically that sometimes things go bad even when you try your best. Fact of life. Pick up and move on. Find a better fit. What else can you do but give it all you’ve got at any one moment in time, understanding that every move you make now impacts a future opportunity?

Well I’m here to tell you that statistically there are millions of talented people that can take ideas and pick them apart and craft processes more and more resistant to abuse & neglect. If you do not give them the right environment to thrive they simply never achieve what would otherwise be. And somehow this lesson from history where we stacked science on top of suffering and exponentially accelerated the advancement of mankind to the point where no longer did we have to live in a society where people went hungry became twisted into a tale of dependency. But that is all humanity has ever been is dependent on each other to survive the reality that we have so little control of the world, weather, and cosmic events that shape our ever-expanding knowledge of our place in the universe. Can I get a shoutout from my Civ 6 players? What is globalization except an agreement by the players to trade fairly? How naive to believe we can ever understand all the rules of life.

Oh. You want a vulnerable moment? I was surprised there were so few businesses that detected the Stenonymous strategy. You pump this thing full of money. You make it stupidly offensive to the common sensibilities of a particular community, and then you let loose with the whole AI bot social advertising magic the kids are doing on Reddit. Just saying, I know a guy who could make it happen. I can’t afford him. Such is life. Guess I don’t know a guy who could make it happen. The readership numbers I’ve posted over the years show that this formula has merit. With a diverse team and an actual budget, we could probably come up with some whacky things. For-profit transcription speed league here we come. Now we’re getting hot.

Maybe the problem is that this is joke money to you, but it could revolutionize our understanding of where the industry is actually at while making a little money and maybe distributing some cash prizes. Nobody’s fronting the money for that right now out of fear of failure. But you are multimillion dollar corporations. Do you really have no resources dedicated to scouting out a talent like Shaunise Day’s? A talent and life experience worth millions of dollars like so many reading this moment. Will the world ever reward you? Or has it already? That is the beauty of America, that is no one’s business but their own what they share beyond what is public and accessible by law.

Ah, the things that my disabilities and beliefs have prevented me from verbalizing. Would that I could. A double entendre the world may never know. In my literary, artsy way. Not in the gross 36 year old man way. I hate those guys too. Sort of. I understand them. But also it’s time to evolve our understanding of each other. I am someone willing to write nearly anything that isn’t illegal if I think it has a shot at capturing the imagination of and/or helping just one other person in this world. There are, of course, boundaries, but I must decide them on a case-by-case basis and beg your forgiveness for the bad judgment calls of the past (present, future).

I apologize for making you work for it. This is my own perverse humor at play. Do other people have complex feelings with regard to access to knowledge versus the value of knowledge? Like, obviously, I believe that people should have the choice to look. But does the “knowledge should be free” crowd fully understand the consequences of a world where everything actually is accessible? Did I?

May it be forever admitted that I am fallible human guilty at times of publishing incorrect information. But then there are operations much larger than my Schedule C that do the same.

Let it be known that this work of art was produced in part to honor all who suffer from autism. Like so many gifts in life it comes without a receipt to return it. Though to be sure I do not think I would, if for no other reason than my own executive dysfunction. It has meshed well with the dark sense of humor one often develops in an environment of vicarious trauma. There are those among us who would make you feel ashamed for that just to rise up on the social pecking order. It matters little that it is a perfectly human behavior.

This hobby of mine is far cheaper than therapy. And far more fulfilling. Although which one I refer to remains a mystery.

May I never forget again.

With love and thankfulness for the trust you have placed in me,

Crowdfund_Brief_Court_Reporting_Study Download

Firm_SOW_Court_Reporting_Labor_Market Download

P.S.

Think you can do better than Gemini, pal? Make me a document I can send an economist firm and one that might deal with an independent like myself who would have to crowdfund the money on Stenonymous.com?

I’ll put together two documents: a formal SOW for consulting firms, and a leaner, budget-conscious version for independent economists that you could fund through crowdsourcing. Let me check the docx skill first for formatting best practices. Now let me build both documents. I’ll write the docx-creation script directly, incorporating all the detail from the Gemini SOW draft (page-rate spread analysis, Part 108 rules, stenographer/voice writer/digital reporter comp tiers) but tightened and organized for two distinct audiences. Now the crowdfunded/independent version — leaner, budget-tiered, written for a Stenonymous.com campaign audience. Let’s verify both render correctly before handing them off. Both look clean. Copying to outputs. Two docs, ready to send:

Firm SOW — formal RFP-style scope of work for a consulting firm bid, with the spread analysis, methodology comp tiers, Part 108 benchmark, budget guidance table, and vetting questions baked in.

Crowdfund Brief — a Stenonymous.com-ready pitch: same research questions, but reframed around realistic funding tiers ($5k/$10-15k/$18-25k), what backers get, and suggested campaign copy.

Addendum:

Within 8 hours, a breakthrough. Men like me only fight when we feel we have no other way to express ourselves.

AI Adventures: The Documented Hallucinations of Christopher Day, Court Stenographer

With regard to these posts or media pages where I reveal discussions with technology, I think it is worth making something clear: I have done somewhat extensive reading and hands-on learning of these technologies. I am aware of the inherent hallucination flaw. I use AI as a literary device because it is, on the whole, useful for bringing to life, preserving, and explaining concepts that otherwise seem to be lost to time and memory.

An interesting thing to note, Google often glitches out on my phone when I want to copy the link to a search chat like this. The button simply never copies the link, meaning screenshots it is.

Spot the hallucinations:

P.S.

Perhaps the most horrifying thing about modern society is that the entire industry and every journalist I have spoken to over the last 8 years or whatever it’s been has simply omitted any mention of any of this from their public statements and reporting despite these being issues that directly impact tens of thousands of people and indirectly impact many court systems and their users.

Look how much press the shortage of the California court system got versus the press that that shortage was in part manufactured, designed, or mismanaged into existence. That’s what we’re dealing with on a fascinating scale. Nearly a decade of misleading the public across the country in the relatively low risk, small stakes business of court reporting. And no one will ever know because it is not profitable to push awareness.

I cannot imagine how bad it must be in other industries and how many decisions we make based on clever lies and decisions by industry executives. Reminds me of the whole recycling public relations push by big oil. An entire society transformed into believing recycling is helping, in a meaningful way, the scientific problems faced by mankind. Meanwhile in actuality we’re just fucking wasting our time throwing different trash into a different bin because it makes us feel like we’re doing our part while in reality all we fucking succeeded in doing is letting big oil executives control more of the world over the half century that followed. And even with that public knowledge we continue wasting our time because now we’re too invested and changing direction would simply be too politically costly.

Well we too are a society transformed. The legal record in many thousands of cases is now effectively controlled by large corporations run by the same corporate psychology that would actively inconvenience and lie to an entire country just to keep the money flowing. Luckily for us, we had a large national organization paying some guy $300,000 a year to watch the fucking ship capsize in real time, so he will be able to afford to jump ship, unlike the rest of us. Don’t be alarmed, it’s all part of the strategic plan.

Perhaps most humorous is that at the end of the day you will still trust him to solve your problems and distrust the guy jumping up and down yelling “danger, danger!” And there’s not really much to be done because the reasons are largely psychological and related to social acceptance and group dynamics.

For the record, that’s also the reason the Republican Congress is watching your Republican President rob you and your children and pretending nothing is wrong. It’s a lot easier to let him rob you than risk another mob invading the capitol building or disrupting their political careers by losing them through political action. And if you should face some misfortune because they desired to keep up appearances instead of following the law or doing the right thing, too bad, so sad for you.

A beautiful week in the world. Another literary legend is born. I end with a social media post I made with regard to a Staten Island Politics Facebook group post:

“The reason MAGA call liberals names is because we show facts they can’t handle.” – Staten Island Politics Poster

To which I could only reply:

The reason we call each other names is we are being propagandized to fight each other while mega wealthy corporations rob our country for all it’s worth under the guise of patriotism and law.

Look how conveniently the tariffs worked out. Corporations got to raise prices. Then they got reimbursed. I no longer believe this to be coincidence, considering it is confirmed that at least one Supreme Court Justice is taking lavish gifts and there are no consequences. Certainly the others now know there are no consequences and our country is for sale.

I have lived here in Staten Island my whole life and I know that if you guys knew and understood what was being done you would be pretty goddamn angry because they are basically putting the government that your kids will live under, under massive debt, no matter who the politicians are, so that that government will spend less on the well-being of your kids and their kids, and more on servicing the debt of the United States of America.

If there are people among us who would vote for starving kids and stunted disabled children, I respect your freedom, but you see that things can get pretty bad even with all the resources we pour into kids and families as a society. What do you think happens to our society when we start cutting those resources off?

You are in danger, but the TV does not tell you that, so you do not perceive danger. And the people putting you in danger will mostly not be here in 10 or 20 years to see how it shakes out.

Addendum:

I later got the link to work.

Stenonymous Predicted VIQ Solutions Crash

VIQ Solutions is being shut down.

This is why I urge students to be aware of market data. I was able to see this coming two years ago. Any operation bleeding money like that was going to cut corners on its contracts, or whatever the case is as it unfolds in Australia.

Watch AI tell me how smart I am.

Damn I should’ve put down some money on Kalshi or something. There’s gotta be a way to turn this pattern recognition into money.

Anyway, moving on, a single post I made on Reddit got about 200x Stenonymous’s monthly views. So at least I know I still got it.

Stenonymous Social Media Op Receives More Than 250,000 views. Thank you Autistic Allies.

Now if only I could’ve monetized that as gracefully as Haliey Welch.

Bringing you the absolutely most hilariously unhinged written content around, Christopher Day, Stenonymous.com.

P.S.

I feel bad because sometimes the message gets lost.

But that’s just how life goes sometimes.

And I think anyone that says otherwise is not really being honest with you or themselves.

Here we are living a collective 192 billion hours a day.

May these words find those who need it:

You are worthy.

I take no more of your time.

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.

Jackie Mentecky: It’s Deception. It’s A Bait and Switch…

(CDA stands for Christopher Day Annotation in this text.)

“We need antitrust monopoly. We need an employment lawyer.”

Cheri Marks speaks to FL stenographer Jackie Mentecky

ME: Where are you from and are you currently working as a stenographer? And how did you get started in that field?

JM: I’m originally from England, but I grew up in the states, I lived in Pittsburgh for a long time. I moved down to Florida 28 years ago, and I’ve been reporting for since 1998. My entire career has been in Florida.

ME: How has the work been going recently? And can you tell me about when and how you started working with the reporters in Florida?

JM: I’ve always worked for the big boxes, but it was more recently I started asking myself, ‘what’s going on with our career?’ And I started nose diving and down rabbit holes, pulling up lawsuits, pulling up billing. And it was when I saw the writing on the wall that I decided to open my own agency.

ME: Could you give me some examples of things you were finding, what the bad practices entailed? I’m also curious where you seek out news, sources and information about abuses in the field of stenography. Is there good communication within the field?

JM: I can tell you this. Going into a job, attorneys were very vocal in asking, ‘why is my bill so high? What is going on?” And I would talk to my girlfriends, and again– more and more attorneys are complaining about their invoices. I’m like, ‘sir, I haven’t seen a bill since 2006. I don’t know what they’re billing you’.

We never got a copy of the bill. We never knew what they were billing. Attorneys, law firms, whatever it was, everything was kept in the dark, hush hush. Nothing. Nothing. We used to get copies of the bills that went out to the law firms–

ME: The bills were coming from who?

JM: The big boxes. So we used to get copies of the bills when they invoiced their clients, but then they stopped. Looking back, that’s kind of when things started going south.

Everything was hidden behind a back door, don’t ask questions, you know? And it was very, you could sense it. You knew it. You would bring it up once in a while, but, God, you were so busy! You just kept working, right? We were busy. You knew something wasn’t right, but you think, well, I’m still making good money, so leave it alone.

ME: Don’t make waves.

JM: And then you’d forget about it, until somebody else would bring it up..

JM: About six years ago, my son started having really bad seizures. And I stopped going out on live jobs, so I was working from home. I was working for a big box, already either appearing by phone or transcribing audios, before it was even cool.

So the first year of COVID I ended up going back to one of the big boxes because Zoom was now popular. It was a lot easier for me to go back to being a stenographer that was doing hearings and trials and depositions. We were having, oh, gosh, two, three jobs a day during COVID when people finally learned how to use Zoom, and we were slammed. Like, even if you tried to get a day off, they were blowing up our phones:

“Open job”, “do this”, “we need that”, “we need help”, “help. I understand you’re off tomorrow, but can you please take this job?”

I mean, we were slammed. And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t so slammed anymore.

But attorneys were like, oh, my God. We’re still on backlog, we’re busy, busy, busy, busy. We gotta go to trial. And the court stenographers were saying, ‘what’s going on?’ Our two jobs a day are now, if we’re lucky we got two or three a week.

So, what is going on?

Covid was the perfect opportunity for these firms to do this to us, because we weren’t in the office together. We weren’t seeing each other all the time. Everybody was working by zoom now. So this was their big chance to cry ‘shortage’ and hire digitals, get them trained, and then try to get rid of the court stenographers. For them to say, we’re too slow, and then come to find out that they have digital reporters in Texas taking Florida work.

I started doing some research. I knew something was up. I knew that this had got to be over profits. I mean, they’re paying these typists $20 an hour. I did legal transcription for over 20 years at a big box firm. I know what AI software they’re using, and how much they’re paying their typist, everything.

Because that’s what it is. They get these digital court reporters, they’re paying them $20 an hour, but they’re still billing the law firms as if a professional stenographer showed up. And then they bless them with this title, ‘court reporter’.

ME: No way!

JM: It’s deception. It’s bait and switch, you know? You hear ‘court reporter’, you’re thinking, court stenographer. And there’s someone sitting there with a machine just pressing ‘record’. And then they input it into a system.

ME: Geez. Is there a Stenography Union?

JM: Well, Florida’s not big on unions. We have the Florida Court Reporters Association. And I always thought it was funny that the big box companies always had people on the board, right? The same people that have tried to strip us of our profession were on the board making decisions on whether we should get legislation to protect our careers. Weird, right?

ME: Yeah.

JM: And it’s so funny because they were all on the FCRA, and they would be big sponsors for conventions and stuff. Then Covid comes and they’re no longer doing that. They’re part of the AAERT, which is the electronic 8th-grade-comparable test to become a court reporter.

(CDA: In full disclosure, I’ve actually read AAERT’s best practices manual, and I believe if best practices were followed all the time, decent transcripts could be made. Best practices are not followed all the time and some of the transcripts I’ve seen over the years have been atrocious. But I suppose that’s not entirely unlike our own field, where some of us do not join into the “excellence culture.”)

ME: Wow.

JM: They were on the board, but they’ve been playing this for years. Covid was the best thing that ever happened to them.

ME: Right. Do you feel like there’s potential for individual court reporters to unionize as a way to push back against this? I don’t know If there’s much conversation between states, or if you’ve done any kind of organizing?

JM: Well, it’s still getting out. At all the agencies, all the managers would always tell us, ‘your job’s protected. We wouldn’t be an agency without the court stenographers’. But behind our backs, they were training digitals. I don’t know how much you know about Veritext, but they buy out to small agencies. They have a school to pump out digitals.

(CDA: BlueLedge.)

ME: Wow.

JM: And then especially, with Zoom, they’re able to get away with using a digital, and they’re billing clients as if a professional stenographer showed up.

I don’t know how New York does it, but down in Florida, we have an appearance rate, which is just us showing up, as an hourly rate. So, I’ll give you an example of a trial. For a court reporter to show up, let’s just say $1,100 for the day. The court reporting agencies would pay the court stenographer anywhere between 65% to 70%. So you’re looking at, you know, $650-700

So they made, like, you know, what, 400, $500 up, sending the court stenographer there.

‘Shortage. Shortage. Let’s send it digital!’. And we’re gonna pay the digital $20 an hour to hit ‘record’.

And then when I started doing the deep dives and the rabbit holes, and I’m seeing how much they’re telling us ($5 a page), versus how much they’re charging them, ($60!) I was going into courthouses and looking up lawsuits. Agencies were suing attorneys for non-payment, and they have to attach the bills– they’re charging them for litigation packages and storage fees and reads. And, you know, this poor court reporter probably only made a third of that bill.

So when I came across Chris and https://stenonymous.com/ I reached out to him. But a lot of the reporters just didn’t believe us.

ME: Really?

JM: Because the agencies kept saying, oh, no, your job is secure. They didn’t want to believe it. It’s denial. I’ve talked to Chris a couple of times. We should really unionize and try to get this going, but it’s also true that the perpetrators have a lot of money.

(CDA: I have spoken to an attorney and have extensive knowledge on this. Unionization, especially unionization alongside digitals with contractual ratios would change the game forever in our favor.)

ME: Yeah.

JM: And they have big dollar investors, millions and millions and millions of dollars. And if you even type ‘court reporter’ into Google search, all you see are the big box names. They bought up so much advertising.

You have to sort through so much to really find out really what’s going on. Though, the law firms are beginning to become educated. They’re like, what do you mean, ‘there’s a digital’? What’s a ‘digital’? They don’t know. The companies think the law firms don’t care, but they do care.

(CDA: Some care, some don’t.)

ME: Maybe if there were some kind of team effort between the stenographers and the law offices? Maybe my next interview should be with a lawyer, to see what their take on this is…

What’s the state of your work now?

JM: Well, now I’m busy. I’m making more money now than I ever have. But I hustle and I work for a couple small firms that take good care of me, and I have my own clients.

I keep telling every single court reporter, leave the big boxes. Go back to the boutiques, they have great clients. In that way, I’m doing well. But it makes me angry when I find out my friends aren’t busy. I’m like, you’re a real time reporter. How are you not paying your rent?

ME: Have you thought of starting a class action lawsuit or anything?

JM: I mean, they monopolized our market.

I started going on LinkedIn, and I started following some of the big law firms and other court stenographers, and I started posting the truth about what’s going on. And it was shocking, to find out how many lawyers did not know that a digital reporter doesn’t actually type the transcript or ever look at it, that they just make the audio.

They tell the lawyers, ‘this is a digital court reporter who’s making a recording, it’s transcribed by stenographic means’. But it’s not!

They don’t tell them that it’s going through AI. They don’t tell them that if it’s a 100 page transcript. There could be five typists that go through it. That’s why it’s all messed up.

I’ve consulted with a few lawyers in a small court reporting agency. She called me and said that she needed a stenographer. She had called to the big boxes, and they’d said, oh, yeah, we have a stenographer. Well, they end up sending a digital. And it was expedited. It was an all day export. And when they got the transcript back– 150 pages were duplicated!

ME: Oh, my God.

JM: And the transcript was trash. She called me up, and I explained to her exactly what happened. And what to say to the big box agency that did it, and what to say to the judge.

And they won!

So, I think we need to educate the lawyers about what’s really happening with the digitals and what the agencies are doing with their audios– how they’re being charged to expedite. They’re getting charged $16 a page, but they’re paying somebody $2 to do it. And then saying, ‘it’s because there’s a shortage, and we were trying to save money’.

So, when a court reporter shows up, in Florida, they don’t have to order. They can say, I don’t need that yet, so they don’t order it. But if they order it, that’s where the money is. But it depends how many attorneys are there. So usually it’s like two attorneys, plaintiff and defense.

But you could have two attorneys or you could have ten attorneys. You can see on the notice how many parties are on a lawsuit.

So when a court reporting agency goes, ‘Oh, look at this lawsuit. There’s one plaintiff and five defendants. That’s six copy sales right there. Yeah, let’s send the digital– because we’re gonna make a ton off the per diem. We only have to pay somebody $2 a page to do the audio and fill in the gaps’ (which are wrong, by the way).

And then they have five copy sales. And in Florida, a copy sale can range anywhere between $4-6. Up to $30 to 100 page transcript. That’s 100% profit margin to them. If there was a court stenographer, a real professional court stenographer that showed up, it’d be 70% of the entire amount that went to the court stenographer.

ME:Yeah.

JM: Digital is 100% profit margin. It’s not a shortage. It’s corporate greed, and profit margins.

ME: Totally.

JM: And then, once again, they don’t even tell the lawyers.

ME: It’s like, they’re taking advantage of this complex exchange. They’re exploiting it for profit. And it’s subtle.

JM: Yea. I want to say it was 2017 that Veritext, US Legal, and Esquire all got bought out by private equity firms. Like, within three months, all the big boxes got bought out. And it was so weird, too, that I was also finding newspaper articles and stories stating there’s a shortage of court stenographers.

(CDA: My memory differs here. I believe at least Veritext was already owned by private equity. It may have changed hands around that time period though. I have no memory of the status of U.S. Legal Support or Esquire.)

Isn’t that weird? All these articles started popping up, right when all these biggest private equity firms were buying up the big box companies for millions and millions and millions of dollars. Why would a private equity firm buy a company when they were crying shortage?

(CDA: I remember this being more like 2019 when all the articles were popping up. But it hardly matters. It was happening.)

And then I found Veritext’s patent, their big AI software and recording devices, and that the plan was to just get rid of stenographers altogether.

It went through during COVID last year, and I posted it. And I thought, is it just me, or does it seem like Veritext is really trying to make us all quit?

They’re really rude to us on the phone. They’re starving us. And then the work that we do get, it’s paltry, and there’s no write ups. It’s like they’re purposely giving us the jobs that they know aren’t going to write up, and we’re just getting a bad per diem.

And then, we started talking on Facebook, posting stuff. And then people were like, yeah, me too. And I’d preciously had stenographers reaching out to me at Facebook, I would take overflow for them. I would call them and ask, what’s going on? And they’d say ‘We’re fully staffed. We don’t need you anymore’.

We need antitrust monopoly. We need an employment contract lawyer.

ME: Yes.

JM: Because in 2011, Veritext, US legal, and Esquire all got sued. There was a class action. Did you know about this in Florida?

ME: No.

JM: There was a class action lawsuit because attorneys were very upset that the word indices at the end of their [transcripts]. They were getting charged per page, like it was a regular transcript from the court reporter.

And the word index is all at the end of the transcript. If you said the word ‘the’ 100 times, it’ll tell you every time in that transcript where you said the word, ‘the’.

So, you know, it could be a hundred page transcript, but it could be a 30 page word index. And they were getting charged page rates, and they were fighting it. So they filed a class action lawsuit saying this is unethical. This isn’t part of the transcripts, it’s not part of the record.

And they ended up losing.

ME: What?!

JM: Because the court reporting agencies went in, and they said, this word index is part of the court reporters word product. It’s part of the transcript.

(CDA: In actuality, it’s more like tying a product under the antitrust laws. You can, and court reporters absolutely do, create transcripts without word indices.)

And that’s how they lost. Now, it’s funny because when that lawsuit came out, it’s running rampant in the office. We were all hearing about it. But, the court reporting agencies were like, don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about the clients. It’s an ongoing litigation. And then we just never heard about it again.

ME: Right.

JM: So when I started doing my deep dives and I was trying to find out what’s going on and what are the real rates, I happened to ask my friend, ‘whatever happened with that?’

ME: That lawsuit?

JM: Yeah. So I googled it, and I read the order when it was dismissed, and I was like, oh, my God. It got dismissed because they’re saying it’s part of our work product. It’s part of our official transcript. And she was like, wow. So why aren’t they paying us for it?

We have never gotten one penny for a word index. Yeah. I think somebody owes us a lot of money.

ME: Yeah!

JM: So, I was just finding out so much. So I called a lawyer. And I asked, was this dismissed because they were saying the word index is part of the court reporter’s work product? And he said yes. And when I told we never got paid for that, he said are you serious? I almost had a heart attack.

ME: Wow

JM: What a mess. Yeah. It’s so shady. I do believe there’s handholding. I do believe these agencies are in it. There’s no doubt. I believe there’s handholding because the AAERT, the two biggest big boxes are on the Association’s membership boards.

I mean, come on.

ME: What are your next moves? What are your hopes for the future of this community and for communications across the board?

JM: Definitely to get more information out. I think what’s going to save us is educating the lawyers. They need to know that if they want to protect their record, they need to have a stenographer.

ME: Yeah.

JM: If they’re gonna go with the digital, then you get what you pay for. When you’re paying for a professional, you should demand a professional.

ME: Yeah.

JM: You know? It’s very overwhelming. Chris and I were sending stuff back and forth all the time. I got very busy with work. I’m hoping we can get back on it. I would love to get a Florida court stenographer association up, and a campaign to educate the law firms and lawyers and really just bring everything to light.

ME: That sounds like a good path forward.

JM: Here’s my favorite example: this is from a trial transcript and appeal transcript out of Broward county, which is in Fort Lauderdale.

I live 20 minutes north of there. And the guy was charged with “lewd and lascivious molestation”.

The digital transcript says he was guilty of “ruining the gas”. The city’s gas station.

The transcript is on my LinkedIn page.

ME: Oh my god, so wild. Okay, I’m gonna end your interview with that amazing quote. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

JM: Bye.

Scam Alert: Fake Student Loan Forgiveness

I recently received a message about my student loans. It used an address I am familiar with and looked possibly legitimate at first glance.

Of course, my student loans have been paid for over a decade now.

Let this be a warning to all steno students: There are scams going on that may use addresses you are familiar with. Always double check the sender and DO NOT let the promise of debt forgiveness push you into FOMO (fear of missing out).

Scammers prey on human emotions. Don’t let them prey on yours.

Checking the sender can help identify scams using Hotmail and Gmail.

Luddites Weren’t Anti-Technology. Neither Are We.

Shared by a brilliant court reporter. Let me know if you want your name here.

Check out this page for the book Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant.

As told by the page, and ostensibly expounded on in the book, the Luddites weren’t against technology. Their livelihoods were taken away by factory owners. They were going to starve.

This page expounds on the idea quite a bit. Though in my view it goes to great lengths to not mention that they were starving.

Brings some interesting context to someone calling us neo-Luddites, as a few have in the past. We’re not against technology. We use technology. We are against companies using their money to lie to the public. We are against corporations violating the law to push us out of our livelihoods.

Those that fail to study history are doomed to repeat it?

P.S.

Tomorrow’s post is written the way it is for many, many reasons. My best friends asked if I was okay. I’m okay.

I don’t anticipate you will read the whole thing. I don’t anticipate anyone will read the whole thing. There are strategic, social, political, and legal reasons for a lot of what I do. The day may come when it is time to reveal these things to the world in more detail or in a more formal setting. Till then…

6 Common Misperceptions About Christopher Day / Stenonymous Corrected for the Record

It came to my attention that someone was saying that my Court Reporter Rates Discussion group is illegal. I gave a blanket public response to this. But in the ensuing conversation I had with that someone, it came to light that some people have some deep misconceptions about who I am and what I stand for.

1. Christopher Day is not a communist.

Concerned court reporter asks Christopher Day if he’s a communist.

I haven’t studied economics and economic systems at length. I get that fighting for working people seems pretty communist. But it’s actually a capitalist sentiment. Charging what the market will bear is very capitalist. The laws of the United States allow for us to create conditions where many workers can charge much more for the same labor. These laws also allow employers to purchase media coverage that steers workers away from charging what the market will bear. The median wage of the United States is $30,000. Guess who’s winning. Hint: Not the sellers of labor. By the way, chances are good that you are a seller of labor even if you hire people every now and again.

Just as an aside, a planned economy is a stupid thing. It works in video games like Suzerain. But look at all the things that create the GDP of the United States. Does anyone truly believe that such a thing could ever be planned? It’s much simpler to reconfigure the markets of today to be more pro-people,

2. Christopher Day does not believe in aliens.

Concerned reporter expresses a belief that Christopher Day believes in aliens.

Is it possible that Earth is not the only place with life? Sure. But I don’t spend very much time seriously entertaining the existence of aliens. I do spend a lot of time playing sci-fi games like No Man’s Sky, Starbound, Factorio, or StarCraft. Who needs the real thing? I can march across hundreds of worlds from the safety of my home.

3. Christopher Day’s publications do not harm students.

Concerned reporter urges Christopher Day to reconsider publications on the grounds that they harm students.

Thousands of court reporters are using my rates discussion page. This creates an environment where established players cannot game their ignorance and eagerness. It also creates an environment where the rampant misinformation campaign committed against consumers by the STTI Bloc is made impotent. Some students have even been kind enough to write to me and let me know that my work strengthened their resolve to become a court reporter. The students of today will be infinitely more informed than I was 16 years ago. In my view, this maximizes their chance of success.

4. Christopher Day’s publications do not hurt small businesses.

Concerned reporter writes to Christopher Day about the impact of his publications on small businesses.

The small businesses were being demolished because of the schemes that go on in the modern court reporting business. I fail to see how media that makes plain the malfeasance of large corporations in the space hurts small businesses. If anything, it should drive more consumers toward small businesses that don’t have the capacity to lie to them on an industrial scale.

5. Christopher Day’s publications will not accelerate the adoption of stenotype alternatives.

Concerned reporter lets Christopher Day know that talking about rates will increase the speed at which alternatives are adopted, which is false.

Veritext has been advertising for digital reporters every day for over 2 or 3 years. The larger corporations have made it clear to all but the most indoctrinated / trusting that they are shifting direction. There is literally nothing they could do to adopt digital faster than they are today, so discussing rates doesn’t hurt us. And in fact, it can only help us as digital court reporters realize that they’re being massively underpaid and begin pushing back against that.

As the pay disparity narrows, so too does the incentive to use digital. Once that incentive is gone, and once the corporate executives have been fired for blowing so much money on advertising for digital, the stage is set for the field to be whatever it’s going to be, rather than what big money wants.

6. Christopher Day’s publications have an impact.

Concerned Reporter lets Christopher Day know what Christopher Day does doesn’t matter.

I’ve heard this one a lot about what I do doesn’t matter, won’t do anything, won’t change anything, or whatever the flavor of the day is. I slew the Speech-to-Text Institute and created the largest court reporting blog in the United States, capable of outing multimillion dollar operations for fraud. Hell yeah, I had help, and I’m grateful for it. But it must be getting really uncomfortable for the people in the “this changes nothing” crowd.

———-

Hey students, if you’re reading, all through your life people are going to put you down like they put me down. Your idea won’t work. You won’t do XYZ. You can’t do XYZ. Take constructive criticism as best you can. But realize that sometimes put downs are put on you just because someone wants you to do what they want you to do, and they’ll say anything to get you there. In this case, it’s pretty easy to see that there are some folks out there that want me to shut up. They’ll say anything about me to obtain that result.

You’ve now seen it with your own eyes. Does someone really believe I am a communist that believes in aliens while I hurt small businesses and students, while also believing I can do what I want because it won’t matter? The more likely truth is that they do not understand my ideas, so my ideas are uncomfortable, so they do not like my ideas. And the easiest way to get me to stop spreading those ideas that they don’t like is to inspire doubt within me that makes me silent.

Understanding that social dynamic is key to your success. You will meet many clients and agencies that will do anything, say anything, to get you to work for less, or to do whatever it is they want you to do, because that’s what’s in their best interest. You must have the strength to identify when that is occurring and act in your own best interest.

And court reporters are not an anomaly. This is also done to journalists. I became aware of a young journalist that would receive high praises whenever submitting work for the exposure. When it came to paid articles, those same people singing the high praises would suddenly be nitpicking. The difference wasn’t the journalist’s work, but that the journalist was seeking payment for their work. It benefits publications when journalists feel insecure about the value of their work because it leads them to accepting less money. The people representing those publications figure out pretty quickly that making journalists feel insecure is the fastest way to fatten their bottom line.

You may one day be engaged with someone trying to manipulate you. It is my sincere hope that on that day you have the strength to identify it, remain resolute, and perhaps even use the experience as a springboard to educate the next person.

It is my sincere hope that the students obtain a level of mastery I could never have imagined.

P.S.

To you, friend, thank you for giving me this material. I meant what I said. If ever you need to talk, reach out. Despite what I’ve done here, it will not end up on Stenonymous.