Category: New Reporters

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.

Bulletin: Black History Month & The Lack of Diversity on Stenonymous

It’s Black History Month! I don’t do much acknowledgement on here of the “recognition months.” There is a part of me that feels it’s malignantly ceremonial. What I mean by that is, more or less, while we take this time to acknowledge and remember the contributions of Black people to the United States, and that’s important; we, as a country and society, all too often then turn a blind eye to the racial and systemic injustices of this day and age, comforted by the “ceremony” of giving those people a month.

(NOTE: Phrased that way to parody the “us versus them” mentality of the chronically bigoted.)

This is very similar to how I view the way court reporters are treated. Companies and courts tell us how important we are and what a good job we do, turn around and cut our jobs, and then blame us for shortage. The respect we have is mostly ceremonial. When it comes down to actually improving our lives and working conditions through a simple gesture like speaking slower and clearer there are very, very few that make active efforts to help. The primary difference? Most of us can, if we so choose, give up the game and go do something else. Not so with the color of skin. Imagine if someone spent a whole month telling you how important you were only for you to live in a reality where you are more likely to experience excessive use of force by police. “Stop resisting!” “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

(NOTE: It is pretty funny/sad/interesting to see how systems react to court reporters standing up for equality. That is to say, we are placated and nothing is done to further equality. Seems malignantly ceremonial.)

I have to grapple with the fact that most do not view “the ceremony” my way. It is viewed as a positive thing. I appreciate that very much. I would gladly host submissions related to Black History Month (or Pride, etc). I’m not trying to blackout or cancel the celebration or stifle discussion about what we have learned from history. But I would need people to come forward and submit things. Otherwise, it’s just me, Whitey McWhiteface, writing what I think should be written. Sharing what I think should be shared. And occasionally being called names for it.

Comment from a video posted by Christopher Day.

But in the end it’s not about me. I acknowledge the power of diverse teams. I acknowledge that I can only bring one perspective out of the billions on this Earth. It is one mission of this blog to attract more viewpoints, opinions, facts, ideas. And I will stand resolute and spotlight anyone that’ll take the time to share with me what they’re doing or what they think should be posted. Because I know stuff is happening just like Margary Rogers’ 2022 project, or Kim Xavier’s video from 4 years ago. I just don’t have omniscience. The community’s help is required to keep tabs on and publicize stuff, at least until the day someone can be employed full time to investigate and write about these things.

Help bring an end to the lack of diversity on Stenonymous. Please reach out with any submissions or projects you want featured. Contact@stenonymous.com. We don’t have the same institutional and organizational bars as the Journal of Court Reporting. Let’s press that advantage and make some magic happen!

P.S.

If you’ve ever wondered why I’m such a hellraiser on issues related to our field, simply put I’ve spent enough time reading up on private equity and documenting the behavior of various people and entities related to our field. I see pretty clearly that they’re looking to push the median wage of our field, about $60,000, toward the median wage of the United States, $30,000, and pocket the difference, multiplied by thousands of court reporters. What would you do to make $3 million a year? Even if you wouldn’t do a damn thing, keep in mind we live in a world where people occasionally stab each other over stolen lunch. Pretty safe to say the big box brigade will do whatever is within its power to take that money from you, especially when it can be given a sham veneer of shortage and legality. The more resistance that is put in the way, the slower this happens, with the possibility of it never occurring. So that’s the “altruistic” bit. I’d do almost anything except illegal things to keep your money in your wallet.

But I get the sense many of you are wary of that. Perhaps it would comfort you to know I am also self-serving. I have a disability wherein 50% to 80% of those with it cannot hold a full-time job. I have another disability right on top of that. I not only hold a full-time job, but I am in the 10% or 20% able to pass a stenographic training course. Then I’m in one of the best stenographic jobs in the whole country, which only maybe 1% of us can hold at any one time. So imagine being in the 1% of the 20% of the 20% (0.04%?). Now imagine that you know, almost factually, that there are forces that are systematically plotting to take that away (example) and that your future hinges on the actions of professionals all across your field.

You’d be Stenonymous too.

Brief Hiatus September 2023

Hey, everybody. There are some great articles and ideas in the works. I’ve had an uptick of information from sources across the country and am doing my best to stay on top of things. I also have several articles/ideas in the works for corporations that have opened up to me about their plans and capabilities.

Unfortunately, due to family stuff, this is taking a lot longer than usual, so please bear with me. Low Stenonymous funding means I have to roll without any help. Unfortunately, the blog has to take a backseat to family and work obligations.

I do feel an obligation to my readers and contributors too, but I have to be realistic in prioritizing.

Thank you for your understanding and all the support you’ve given this blog! More regular posting should resume within a month.

For Self-Learners: How To Grade Your Steno Test

I came across this Reddit post by someone teaching themselves steno. They did not understand the grading process. Of course, everyone, including me, pointed them to the NCRA’s PDF about what constitutes an error. But I got deep into the math and I would like to share it here so that people might be able to use it in the future if they get confused:

What constitutes an error: (NCRA Link Again)

So then you take your words per minute, and figure out 5% of that (95% is passing for most places.)

(Words per minute * .05.) * dictation time in minutes.

5 min 225 WPM take.

(225 * . 05) * 5

(11.25) * 5

56.25 errors allowed. Some places allow 57.

I hope this helps.

You can also do total words * the number of errors allowed.

(225 * 5) = total words

(total words) * .05

from the above example:

(1,125) * .05 = 56.25.

If you need accuracy of 96%, use .04 instead.

If you need accuracy of 97%, use .03 instead.

If you need accuracy of 97.5%, use .025 instead.

If you need accuracy of 98%, use .02 instead.

If you need accuracy of 99%, use .01 instead.

As they say in fairytales, the end.

Addendum:

This originally posted with an error where it said 97.5% should use 0.035. This is false. It should have been 0.025 and was corrected.

Finally, Another Song About Stenography

After I was given permission to mirror Andy Bajaña’s song, things dried up for a while on my end. I’m pleased to announce a new stenographer song by Anonymous, commissioned by Stenonymous.com.

The song’s available for download at $1.00. The song’s already free on YouTube and easy to share, but I know there will be those of you that want the wav file or to show support.

It’s thanks to this community that I’m able to do things like this. It’s like I keep saying, more resources give me more power to advance our interests.

Perhaps that makes it a good time to lay out some of my long-term goals. I’d like to grow big enough to begin to centralize our stenographic media, get some of our best influencers on a payroll or contract basis, and really begin extending our reach using several different entertainment styles. It’ll take me a long while to do it alone. Not so with the help of my fellow court reporters.

Regardless of what you think of that plan, enjoy the song, and have a great day!

NCRA Town Hall: A to Z, Public & Government Relations

I attended the National Court Reporters Association Town Hall today with President Jason Meadors, and boy, am I glad I did. It gave me confidence that the association and its leaders are pushing hard to represent the interests of members. The entire session was almost exactly an hour, so there’s a lot to unpack.

Present at the meeting were, as stated, NCRA President Jason Meadors, Executive Director Dave Wenhold, Max Curry, a Past President and Chair of the A to Z committee, Annemarie Roketenetz, Director of Communications & PR, and Jocelynn Moore, Director of Government Relations. The meeting started off with a lengthy discussion from Max Curry about the A to Z program, and he took the time to explain where the program started and how it was completely revamped. According to Mr. Curry, A to Z began with about 50 boots-on-the-ground programs in the states. That fell away when the pandemic happened, and most programs closed. Programs in Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota, and California all went remote, which showed that the program could be done remotely. A new vision has come into place where the program can be done remotely and all of the resources can be centralized behind the program, with fewer boots-on-the-ground programs. Eight programs will be done a year, four asynchronous and four live. This is to capture the different kinds of learners — ones that can learn on their own AND people that need interactivity to succeed.

One of the truly exciting plans was for a landing page that can be centralized that brings people back to A to Z. NCRA is planning to reach out to organizations and associations to have them host a button or link to the landing page, creating a spiderweb or net that helps catch all the people that might be interested in this wonderful career and bring them back to the NCRA’s A to Z to give steno a try. They may ask firms to donate $5 to $10 of their Search Engine Optimization budget to help bring people to the landing page. NCRA President-Elect Kristin Anderson’s Houston President’s Party will act as a fundraiser for SEO dollars to ramp up advertising about court reporting and captioning as careers.

Lisa Dennison also spoke and informed us that 15 A to Z scholarships were given out at $750 per award. NCRA interacted with ASCA, the American School Counselor Association, getting school counselors’ contact information, adding them to a contact list, and getting them information about court reporting. It was mentioned that the communications team has been working on Instagram, QR Codes, and other ways to spread the message. Reliance donated money for student memberships for previous A to Z graduates, which helped grow association membership as well.

It was mentioned that NCRA continues to work with vendors such as Advantage, ProCAT, and Stenograph. The StenoCAT iPad app, iStenoPad, was also described as a way to simplify the logistics of getting stenotypes to participants.

It was explained that last year 295 students were picked up by A to Z. Max Curry clarified that some local programs do not coordinate with headquarters, so numbers from those programs are unavailable. Ms. Dennison asked that participant lists be sent to the NCRA so that better data can be compiled.

A quote by Brianna Coppola was shared. “I have never seen or heard of another ‘career test drive’ course. It really spotlights the encouragement within the community of reporters and their love for their jobs and dedication to the field.”

Dineen Squillante asked about the possibility of reaching out to departments of labor in each state. Lisa Dennison responded that it was something that could be looked into.

2022 Program Leaders and Speakers were thanked. It’s an extensive list, and I feel they deserve the recognition.

Ms. Dennison made it clear that the door was open to anyone that wanted to reach out on A to Z.

Annemarie Roketenetz talked a little bit about plants for Court Reporting & Captioning week, and a lot about the many endeavors of NCRA. She also mentioned that a number of press releases would be made, leading up to a larger press release that will link back to all the smaller ones. This is in line with dispatching our news and events regularly, and a very smart move on NCRA’s part. Several events were mentioned. Review the Town Hall recording at the Learning Center for more, I cannot do it justice in print. Our PR and communications are in good hands.

Mr. Meadors noted that Legislative Bootcamp has been called a “money grab.” He stated NCRA does not make money on bootcamp and reiterated what an important program it really is.

Jocelynn Moore expounded on bootcamp, explaining that it is extremely immersive training on how to be effective grassroots lobbyists. She stated that the training is “going to give you all of the tools necessary to go in front of a legislator, oppose legislation that doesn’t agree with the profession, or advocate for a bill coming through. Some of the topics covered will be “politics 101,” how associations work, and how you can mobilize with other members in your state to move forward on a particular issue.

The Training for Realtime Writers Act was mentioned. It was also mentioned that it will be difficult to reintroduce this under a Congress attempting to cut spending. More information will be provided on that at bootcamp, but also more on the situation from Indiana. Participants will learn how to advocate in front of different parties and teach members to speak to legislators, because legislators do not always have all of the information we have about our field.

Ms. Moore continued on to talk about the Indiana issue. The proposed prohibition of stenographers from Indiana courts was revealed. We learned that NCRA began a grassroots campaign to find out what happened and why the proposed change was introduced. The organization has found difficulty getting information about the change, but finds the language to be discriminatory and mandatory, robbing judges of their discretion and forcing them not to use a stenographer.

It was a packed hour. My only criticism of the event would be that they ran out of time for questions. But you know what? It happens. President Meadors directed that efforts should be made to record questions asked and that efforts would be made to have them answered. Everything wrapped up with Dave Wenhold thanking the participants for coming out on a Saturday. He said that if you get any information on Indiana, you can pass it to him or Ms. Moore. President Meadors noted that just showing up and asking questions meant participants were dedicated to the profession. The meeting subsequently came to a close.

Refinement of the programs we have is going to seize the day here. Leadership is doing something very impressive. My opinion may not count for much, but I’d thank each of them for the hard work that they do and continuing to fight for this profession. It’s inspiring, and I hope reading a little about it has inspired all of you.

The Learning Center can be used to locate and view past Town Halls.