How To Stop Corporate Fraud in Court Reporting by Joe Gratton

The following was written by Joe Gratton for the Stenonymous blog, mostly unedited:

There’s currently ongoing and blatant corporate fraud in the court reporting industry. Yet many industry professionals remain unaware and unconcerned about the danger posed by companies deliberately exaggerating the court reporter shortage to espouse the benefits of digital court reporting as if the two services are somehow equivalent.

The companies that have tacitly colluded under the umbrella of the non-profit Speech-to-Text Institute (STTI) are engaging in deceptive practices by spreading misinformation about the cost, quality, and validity of digital court reporting services.

With little to no oversight by courts or government agencies, these companies are getting away with it. However, there are steps stenographers, lawyers, and other affected parties can undertake to ensure justice is served and the court reporting profession is protected from further subversion.

Background to the Corporate Fraud Currently Occurring in the Court Reporting Profession

It’s worthwhile spending a few moments elucidating the circumstances that have allowed corporate fraud to occur unchecked thus far.

It’s essential to start by explaining that, yes, there are court reporter shortages within the United States – primarily due to retirement. However, these shortages are minimal and localized. Moreover, these minor shortages are increasingly offset by excellent recruitment initiatives led by National Court Reporters A to Z, Project Steno, Open Steno, and other worthy organizations.

The companies launching spurious claims that the shortage can’t possibly be filled with more stenographers (and, therefore, should be replaced with the vastly inferior practice of digital court reporting) base their assumptions on the deeply-flawed Ducker Report of 2013-14, which stated that 70% of court reporters would retire over the next 20 years (2013-2033).

Not only is the report now rapidly approaching ten years since publication (significantly undermining its relevance), but those predictions were based on, wait for it, interviews with 120 industry professionals from in and around the industry. Even with some “proprietary data analysis” thrown in from Ducker, how anyone can profess that there’s currently a potentially industry-ending court reporter shortage based on such flimsy evidence is anyone’s guess.

Worse, when reviewing objective industry data, there are around 27,000 court reporters still active within the profession. How many were there in 2013, the year of the Ducker Report? 21,000. The predicted retirement cliff must be getting taller every day since stenographer numbers are still trending upward ten years later.

And yet, companies such as Veritext, US Legal, and others have happily used these terribly inaccurate extrapolations to make even worse predictions about stenography’s future.

For instance, they have gone on the record to claim the industry requires 82,000 stenography training program enrollments annually (based on a 10% graduation rate) to plug the self-proclaimed shortfall. Yet this figure would quadruple the size of the entire court reporter industry today and increase the pool of available court reporters to six times that of 2014, the year the so-called “shortfall crisis” started.

With wildly incorrect and baseless predictions like these, it’s easy to see why those with only the most tenuous of links to the legal profession are raising eyebrows at how some of these court reporting companies are getting away with blatantly misleading the public for so long.

Why Corporate Fraud in Court Reporting Continues Today

There’s a pretty obvious reason these companies keep promoting and disseminating their misleading and inaccurate claims: there’s a lot of money to be made.

Stenography is skilled labor and is remunerated as such (some might say underpaid). For someone to type at a rate of 225+ words per minute with an accuracy rate of 99.8% takes years of training and dedication. Stenographic writing is closer to playing the piano than typing on a keyboard. It takes at least two years in a stenography training program, state licensure, and professional certification.

Digital court reporter training lasts six months, with most of that time spent learning how to take accurate notes and operate sound and video equipment. That’s it.

In short, these companies want to replace those hard-earned skills with technology so they can charge less for their services and make huge profit margins while doing so. With audio and video equipment in place, digital court reporters merely make sure the equipment is working and note key pieces of testimony.

The companies in question want to mislead the world into thinking that digital court reporting does the same work as traditional court reporting. But once again, the objective facts of the profession paint a different picture.

Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) software delivers a dreadful 25%-80% accuracy rate, and non-stenographers transcribe English dialects such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) at a rate half as accurate as court reporters. These are merely two of dozens of damning examples showing that digital court reporting cannot replace standard court reporting.

And yet the two are conflated as one and the same on a daily basis by those that stand to profit most from doing so.

How they have been allowed to for so long somewhat beggars belief.

It seems that, thus far, the courts and government agencies tasked with protecting the public from fraudsters and con artists seem unwilling or unable to act.

So can change be instigated? How can those being hurt by these misleading and fraudulent claims take action?

How to Fight Corporate Fraud in Court Reporting

The simple answer is to fight back. The very tactics companies use to mislead the public can be used against them. They are so brazen and demonstrably false that they are easy to report to the appropriate authorities.

Report Antitrust, False Advertising, or Deceptive Business Practices to the State Attorney General

Where applicable, it makes sense to refer complaints about deceptive practices and patently false advertising to the relevant state attorney general. Not only will they have a more precise understanding of the misrepresentation at hand (being lawyers themselves) than government agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but state attorney generals have the legal power to act against such companies.

Their purview, among other responsibilities, includes enforcing their given state’s consumer protection laws. Given the flagrant breaches occurring, including false advertising, tacit collusion, and deceptive marketing practices, it would be entirely reasonable to expect that they can take action against these corporate fraudsters if made aware.

Report Antitrust Violations and False Advertising to Federal Trade Commission

Given the attempts by the STTI to falsely create a market problem and sell the solution (digital court reporting), it’s worth reporting any antitrust or false advertising violations to the FTC.

Not only have they already pledged to protect gig workers from unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices, but they have specifically stated they will also investigate exclusionary or predatory conduct that could cause harm to customers or reduced compensation, or poorer working conditions for gig workers.

Given the practices of these companies harms both customers (by giving the false illusion of equivalency between standard and digital court reporting and deceptively exaggerating the court report shortage) and the 70% of court reporters that work as independent contractors, the FTC should at the very least investigate these practices.

Sending Information to Local and Corporate News Outlets

Sometimes the only way to draw attention to a problem is to throw a spotlight on it. By writing emails to editors of local newspapers or contacting local TV stations and radio stations, it’s possible to make clients aware of the deceptive practices and have them contact the relevant authorities and regulators to demand action.

At the very least, it may be that these fraudulent operators have to answer very direct questions regarding their business practices. With the glare of a significant readership or viewership, they may squirm under the pressure and be forced into providing evidence and documentation that doesn’t actually support their statements.

Contact Local Elected Officials

Another option for stopping corporate fraud on this scale is contacting elected local officials at either state legislature or county levels.

Not only do they have the power to pass laws that protect consumers from unfair or deceptive trade practices, but they also have a direct line to the government agencies tasked with enforcing those laws, such as the FTC and state attorney general.

Once again, those with the power to act can’t do so if they are ignorant of the problem in the first place. Only by publicizing these fraudulent practices can lawmakers and regulators be forced to act.

Court Reporting is Under Attack from Those Standing to Benefit from Its Demise: It’s Time to Act

There’s no question that the court reporter shortage has been leapt upon by companies such as Veritext, US Legal, Planet Depos, and other members of the STTI as an opportunity to cash in on the digital court reporting market.

By replacing incredibly skilled labor with unskilled and automated digital transcription, they persist in attempting to convince law firms, courts, and even government agencies that digital court reporting is a viable replacement.

The statistics speak for themselves on that front.

However, it’s the hyperbolic claims being made and the outright lies being spread about the court reporting industry in the name of corporate greed that are truly egregious. It’s naked corporate fraud that is only being further enabled by the willful ignorance of many lawmakers and regulators tasked with protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive trade practices.

Thus, the onus is now on those willing to stand up for justice to take action using some, if not all, of the avenues mentioned above.

Hopefully, with coordinated and concerted action, there can be an end to the rampant corporate fraud taking place within the court reporting and stenography profession.

Author: Joe Gratton
Bio: Joe Gratton is a professional writer who has worked with a number of legal firms in the United States, covering topics including court reporting, legal videography, electronic discovery (e-Discovery), and trial presentation services.

2022 Year End Report and Looking Forward

Happy New Year everyone! I wanted to provide a statistics update for the blog and some thoughts looking forward.

In 2022 there were 27,671 visitors and 48,649 views. This is a drop from 2021’s 51,423 visitors and 85,117 views. It is, however, still a massive upgrade from 2020, which saw 9,526 visitors and 15,158 views. This is in the context of a field estimated to be about 30,000 members. This was expected because funding for the blog was not as high this year and the advertising I could run for steno or consumer awareness was limited.

Stenonymous.com 2022 statistics showing about 27,000 visitors in 2022. — Stenonymous.com 2022 visitor stats.

Due to the drop in funding, I’ve been forced to find low-cost ways to spread the message and get attention on our issues.

Christopher Day standing with a Stenonymous.com QR code on a wearable sandwich board. — Christopher Day attracting attention to the stenographic legion and Stenonymous Q4 2022. Times Square.

I even enlisted the help of a cheering crowd. They know what stenographers need, international support. They told us to never give up.

Just kidding. While I was out there promoting Stenonymous, their protest was about the Burmese people, and while I don’t mean to co-opt their movement, I did want to make a point about the importance of my work as an independent body. Everybody has an angle. Big boxes want you working for them cheaply, manufacturers want to sell you stuff, I want people reading my work. The difference between me and a lot of other “influencers” is that my angle is not purely monetary. There is a social and political component to what I do. With your continued support, either through passing me information or monetarily, this movement to defend the interests of working reporters can only grow to have real teeth.

There are indications change is coming. Some of my sources have reported New York City copy sales as high as $1.00 per page and originals upwards of $4.30 per page. This is contrasted against the situation as it was in 2010 and many years thereafter, $0.25 copies and originals as low as $2.80. What’s happened in the last 5 years to make prices quadruple? Documentation and broadcasting of how bad New York freelance reporters are getting screwed. The documentation of events in our field has a value, but media growth will have more value. If we can get it in front of every law practitioner how easy it is to edit audio, they might be less inclined to charge into digital. If we can get it in front of jobseekers that digital court reporting doesn’t have the same career options as steno, they may find their way to steno or another career that treats them better. If we can continue to gather and release data that helps players in the market make informed decisions, it may reinvigorate an industry that some feel is in decline. If we can communicate to the public that the integrity of the appeal system is contingent on the accuracy of these records, we can get more people behind our cause.

Again, have a happy and healthy new year. I’ll be doing what I can to make this one count.

Christopher Day looking forward to the future of Stenonymous

Facebook Boosting 101

If you’re looking to promote your steno nonprofit or your primary steno business, the numbers don’t lie, marketing is going to bring more eyes to what you’re selling. That’s a common-sense statement, but let’s drive it home. This blog, on average, will get about 500 to 1000 unique visitors a month and about double the views or clicks. That’s just me writing what I write and sharing it on Facebook. In honor of CRCW 2021, I ended up posting a lot this month. I published over a dozen articles, and the “average” did not change much. Now we’ll compare that to December 2020, where I wrote three posts and advertised two on Facebook.

I wrote my heart out and it’s not even close.

About 700 visitors, 14 posts, that’s about 50 visitors a post. That’s compared to nearly 3,000 visitors, three posts, a thousand visitors a post. About $200 gave me 20x the reach.

Yay for me. Why am I writing this? To help you. On Facebook today there are groups and pages. Groups serve, more or less, as discussion boards. Pages are more like ad space. They’re promotional and you generally control the content on there. You can have a page and a group, and you can have a page act as an admin to a group. There’s one major difference between the two. As best I can tell, groups cannot advertise. Pages, on the other hand, have the power to boost posts. So if you’re looking to market, get yourself a page.

What kind of monster doesn’t even like his own page?

When you create a post on your page, you have the option to boost a post. Check the boost post option before you make your post to get to the “boost” controls.

After you click post, you’ll get transported to the magic world of the boost page. That’s going to look like the image below, hopefully, and it’s going to give you options to put in your budget, and more importantly, edit your audience. Generally if you put in more money, they’ll estimate more views per day. If you put in more days, you’ll get fewer views per day, but the ad will run longer. There are some minimums, but you can go as low or as high as you want. Again, in December, I felt comfortable spending in the ballpark of $200 for week-long campaigns. What will you see in the edit audience tab?

You get to target, gender, age, location, and then add specific demographics.

The only thing you should know is your audience has to be broad enough to run the ad. If you’re way too specific, it blocks you. For example, I started clicking demographics for all these things and the potential reach was only about 5,000. I clicked “lawyer” and the potential reach jumped up by millions.

That’s all there is to it! There are a few other options, like whether you want your ad to run in Facebook, Messenger, or both, and whether you want to use Facebook Pixel. My personal preference? I run the ad only Facebook and do nothing with Facebook Pixel. I know a lot of us trust and believe in face-to-face conversations. We want to grow deep connections and be one with our audience. But again, we’re looking at 20x the reach with a small budget.

With that in mind, I’ll be launching and advertising a post on March 1 directed at digital reporters and transcribers. Here’s my thinking: We have this whole group of people who probably like sitting in court proceedings, the companies they work for are not telling them about steno, or maybe even lying to them about steno. It’s time to break that in half and get the good ones over to us. If you support that, or even if you’re just grateful for the information in this post, feel free to donate here. I’m very grateful to people that have donated in the past. Every dollar helps keep this place ad-free. We don’t want to go back to that time.

Alternatively, if you’re tired of my blog, check out Glen Warner’s or Matt Moss’s. There are so many out there, including businesses like Migliore & Associates or MGR. It can be really heartening to see the incredible amount of information and opinions we have out there. Highly suggest checking out any of them.

Site Updates May 2020

I don’t often make posts about the blog itself. For the last couple of years now I’ve committed to making it an ad-free experience. Some of you will see that we no longer have to deal with the ugly FTRREPORTING title in the site’s URL. Don’t worry though, all of those links will still work and redirect to their proper pages. Everything should say Stenonymous now. If your browser says this website is “not secure,” that’s a “lie” that you can fix by typing in https://stenonymous.com.

Unfortunately, for a short time last month, the stenonymous.com domain and search box were not working. Guess what? Now they do! Users can sort by relevance, oldest, or newest. Most of the unlisted pages and all of the uncategorized pages are purged. They were old and had nothing of import, so now readers won’t have to stumble onto them.

The Table of Contents has been updated with anything that wasn’t on it before from this year. I’m still not entirely happy with organizing it this way, but it’s a lot better than the old way.

Let’s talk about content real quick.

Usually I do a monthly jobs post. This month I’m going to try something different and try posting that around the 15th, because as luck would have it, now that I do a post around the 1st of every month, governments routinely post their jobs immediately after my post!
I’ll be on a short segment of NCRA’s Stenopalooza tomorrow, during the NCRA Strong POW session. If anybody needs CEUs, it’s still available. But I am sure to write a little bit about that this month, so keep an eye out. I’m going to be talking with an audio expert. What I’d really like people to think about is how they can use this information to educate clients and fellow stenographers. Think about the stories that my fellow Strong members are going to talk about and think about how we’re all normal people making a difference. You can be that person.
Despite my general hesitance to cover the organization, STTI held a webinar last Wednesday. Most of what they said seemed reasonable. It was the panelists’ opinion of the direction of the field. It’s only when we got to about 40 minutes in and they mentioned the stenographer shortage that I’d like to address. If you’re somebody who has not really researched the shortage a lot, please be on the lookout for that article this month.
I actually had a freelance writer interview someone in the Open Steno group. As I understand, she’s a transcriber that used Word’s autocorrect features to make her own shorthand. It’s the same concept of steno, shortcuts to words, and it shows you just how valuable what we do really is in terms of inputting the words fast! This is why I have always been a proponent of letting transcribers know there’s a better way. Why force people to invent workarounds when there’s something tried, tested, and working right now with machine shorthand reporting? That’s coming up. Stay tuned.
I have two other things I’m trying to decide how to present. One, some page rate data I had started work on months ago. Two, some really great ideas pertaining to marketing I got from a book I read and what it means for us. Look out for these in late May. If my procrastination talents prevail, perhaps summer 2020.
Far future project. I’m going to look into whether it’s possible to embed my automatic marking program into the website itself to make it more intuitive for people. I talk a little bit about the coding behind it here. In the meantime, Todd Olivas already has a similar tool, but it might still count Q. and A. as words.

Remember, I don’t censor comments here unless it’s caught in my spam filter or completely off topic, hate filled, nonsensical. Same goes for my Facebook discussion group. That hasn’t changed! All are welcome. Also remember, if you generally like the stuff you see here, you can donate or buy a Sad Iron Stenographer mug. If every reader this month donated $5, we’d be ad-free for ten years. If every reader bought a mug, we’d be ad-free for 20. Don’t do the math on this one, just trust me.

A Quick Note About Typos On This Blog

Once upon a time, and still from time to time, I poke fun at typos, errors, or omissions in various forms of media including newspapers, news articles, and blog posts. Having come to a point where I write my own blog, I see how fast the typos can pile up. When I wrote primarily on my PC and made specific time to write, my posts were generally very clean. Now that I’m hooked up on mobile and find myself writing any time I have time, I see that mistakes are quite common. Periods go missing, commas get misplaced, text gets accidentally deleted, header scripts get added to paragraph text.

I need to ask a favor of every reader now that the blog is approaching a good 400 views a month or more: Let me know when I have made a mistake. Laugh about it. Post jokes publicly or privately. Do what you have to do to make yourself feel better, but let me know that there’s an error so that it can be fixed.

In return, I do and will continue to practice what I preach and gently let publications know when there are errors. I will do my best to read all criticisms and correct things I feel warrant correction. The rationale here is simple: We may disagree with each other’s views or philosophy, but it is intellectually dishonest to point at a spelling/grammar mistake and say that makes someone less of a reporter, writer, or truth teller. We protect the collective record, so to speak, when we speak up and let each other know there’s a mistake or a goof.

There’s a time and place for castigation of people who needlessly and carelessly make mistakes. For everyone else, there’s a road to improvement and a way forward, and it reflects positively on every reporter when we encourage others to do better.