The Court Reporter Shortage Fraud Timeline as told by Stenonymous

This is a timeline of events I wrote out for another project. It presents a snapshot of what I have documented over the years and links many blog posts to form what I feel is the bulk of the story.

Perhaps it will help supporters to have a single document like this. Perhaps it’ll help those who get lost trying to navigate the site and understand the issues. Perhaps it’ll sit on the internet collecting internet dust. Whatever the case, just know that I appreciate every single one of you for spreading the word and sending me information. It has made all of this possible.

Summary of Fraud:

The basic idea is that these multimillion dollar corps (Veritext, US Legal, etc) got together under the nonprofit Speech-to-Text Institute to claim the stenographer shortage was impossible to solve and artificially increase digital demand, which they all then benefit from. Stenograph was also a part of STTI, as its president, Anir Dutta, was vice president of the STTI. While making these claims through STTI, many of the companies were representing to attorneys and the public that they couldn’t find stenographers. Meanwhile, they weren’t using basic methods to find stenographers, like Sourcebook / PRO Link, a national directory of stenographers. Jim Cudahy is instrumental in getting the shortage forecasted via NCRA, then he turns around and weaponizes it against us years later before I declare him a fraud and he runs off to another association about a year before the STTI gets sued and takes down its site.

Timeline of Documentation: 

2013 – The Court Reporting Industry Outlook 2013-2014 is created by Ducker Worldwide for the National Court Reporters Association. Jim Cudahy is Executive Director of NCRA at this point and instrumental in getting the shortage forecasted. Notably, California’s shortage is forecasted to be 5x to 20x worse than any other state.

2014-2018 – Initiatives such as NCRA A to Z, Project Steno, and Open Steno boost stenographic recruitment and public awareness of steno. Jim Cudahy is replaced as Executive Director during this time period and goes on to do whatever he does (7 MARCOM, I think). All of the companies in question were incredibly quiet, considering there was allegedly an impending shortage of doom.

2018 – At this point, the field didn’t even believe the larger companies were using digital court reporting. I know this because it surprised people when I published about it. Around this time, companies also began advertising huge bonuses with jobs to get court reporters to cover in California, lending some credibility to shortage concerns.

2019 – Veritext begins propagandizing lawyers to get them to change their deposition notices and allow for digital court reporting. US Legal Support buys and later kills StenoTrain, which was run by Patricia Falls (court reporting educator that is now all about digital.) At this point in history, companies were trying to get digital court reporters seen as just court reporters. We began differentiating ourselves as stenographers. Remote reporting comes up as a potential fix for shortage woes.

Veritext VP Gina Hardin writes a piece about digital reporting changing the landscape of reporting. After big social media buzz, she’s allegedly fired.  Veritext makes it out like she did this of her own choice rather than following the direction of the company. Veritext makes the public statement that stenography is the life-blood of our industry and that of Veritext.

Companies begin popping up making outrageous claims. For example, vTestify had a calculator on its site that said it could save attorneys $3,000 per deposition

Stenographers are often insulted as “expensive,” but in 2019 I learned we were working for rates 30 years behind inflation. (NY)

Jim Cudahy reappears under the Speech-to-Text Institute making the claim that the stenographer shortage is impossible to solve.

At this point, the bait and switch tactics of sending digital court reporters instead of stenographers are known. A nonprofit called Protect Your Record Project is formed to warn consumers.

Open letter released from Veritext about the shortage.

2021 – Veritext makes a statement to Stenonymous that technology will not take the place of the reporter. I begin to realize the Ducker Report was flawed. I get my hands on an email from US Legal Rep Peter Giammanco where he puts IN WRITING “does it really matter if done legally and ethically…[if both products are the same.]” I document some of the materials that companies are using to promote digital and note the scarcity of pro-stenographer material. I note that BLS statistics appear inaccurate and don’t match up with NCRA’s statistics. STTI, U.S. Legal, and Veritext all use a flimsy game of numbers to continue to push the propaganda the shortage is impossible to solve.

At this point the switch is flipped and I start poking holes in STTI materials. 

A website using stenography images to lure people into digital court reporting is found. When I alert ESYOH to the fraud, they take parts of it down. 

BlueLedge Digital Court Reporter training is linked to Veritext – the full extent of the relationship is unknown. And Stenograph is definitely in on making money off of digital court reporting and part of STTI. Interestingly, a Veritext company appeared to share an office with BlueLedge. Stenograph’s stenographer support also took a massive dip during this time period. Even NCRA notes there may be illegal conduct coming from digital land. 

It’s also noted that Veritext ran a training for NYPTI prosecutors (prosecutors often go into civil lit, Veritext’s domain). They made it seem like stenography was old and outdated despite modern computerization. Basically eliminating us in attorneys’ minds through education.

At this point in history, I declared Jim Cudahy a fraud for his part in advancing STTI’s agenda.

2022 – A couple of hit pieces are put out on me. I actually got one of them taken down. A lie is published to the internet that the NCRA predicts a need for 30,000 digital court reporters, which we later get taken down. We launch a campaign to tell the FTC what’s happening. STTI continues to publish garbage. Jim Cudahy leaves to the Alliance of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Societies. I note that according to BLS statistics, our median pay is falling, which is not something that occurs if there is a shortage of something (supply down, price go up.) FTC makes the claim it will crack down on companies taking advantage of gig workers. I publish and advertise the fraud some more. I document STTI has -$100,000 net assets according to a tax return. NCRA Strong finally points out that the Ducker Report is outdated.

2023 – Veritext subsidiary is discovered to have purged popular stenographer anecdote. Indiana proposes a ban on stenography in its courts. A lawsuit emerges claiming USL stole commissionable income from one of its executives, in my view strengthening the case that they’d commit illegal acts. Veritext goes after a court reporter for something they wrote on Facebook after ignoring my claims for over a year (well beyond the statute of limitations for defamation at this point.)

A lawsuit is filed against the Speech-to-Text Institute for anticompetitive behavior and the STTI takes its site off the web. 

Anir Dutta calls me intellectually challenged, and when this is discovered, he apologizes. The situation causes an uproar in its customer base that results in a Town Hall Meeting with customers where Mr. Dutta stated he was no longer affiliated with the STTI organization.

That’s the story so far. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. But I beg you to look at the inertia of the companies for half a decade prior to the shortage compared to their aggressive expansion of digital thereafter, as well as the flip flopping by Veritext that points to a very real intent to deceive.

Addendum:

As of July 2023:

1. Lawsuit update.

2. Correction to the original article which accidentally said Jim Cudahy changed associations months before STTI took down its site. In fact it was more like a year. This confusion was a 2022/2023 typo in my notes.

As of August 2023:

I scraped the old STTI leadership off the Wayback Machine so that people can see what I’m saying when I talk about the STTI Bloc or the companies behind the organization.

Then leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, as preserved by Stenonymous.com and the Wayback Machine
Then leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, as preserved by Stenonymous.com and the Wayback Machine
Then leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, as preserved by Stenonymous.com and the Wayback Machine

NCRA STRONG: The Demise of the Ducker Report…

On Monday NCRA published “From NCRA Strong: The Demise of the Ducker Report: lessons learned and successes celebrated.” This was a personal favorite of mine because it skillfully and articulately takes many of the issues we have been discussing as professionals for the last few years, wraps them up, and puts them to rest. In summary, the article lines up that Ducker is outdated and that despite some organizations stating the shortage is impossible to solve, there have been a multitude of developments in the field that have helped us along, such as NCRA A to Z, Open Steno, and Allie Hall’s creation of court reporting programs around the country. It’s an excellent read, go check it out.

Special thanks to:

Elizabeth Harvey, FAPR, RPR

Sue Terry, FAPR, RPR, CRR, CRC

Lilian Freiler, FAPR, RMR, CMRS

Michelle Kirkpatrick, RDR, CRR, CRC

P.S. I had some inspiring words for NYSCRA group members that I’d like to share with everyone.

Christopher Day’s remarks on the Demise of Ducker post by NCRA Strong

Was Ducker Worldwide Wrong About Stenographer Shortage?

The main talking point of some industry hacks, is that we have a low pass rate for stenographic court reporting, about 10 to 20%, and therefore we cannot solve the stenography shortage by recruiting because recruitment will “never” keep up with demand. This is extrapolated from the information that was provided in the Court Reporting Industry Outlook 2013-2014 by Ducker Worldwide. As stated in the beginning of the report, the way that this forecast was created was by interviewing about 120 people from in and around our field, as well as some proprietary data analysis by Ducker.

My main strategy, up to now, has been to explain why these people are extrapolating incorrectly or making bad arguments. I’ve made counter arguments that suggest the shortage is best solved through stenographic reporting that put theirs to shame and have not been refuted. I’ve unapologetically named names on the corporations that are trying to bump us out because this matters to me. This is my field. This is what I want to do. This is where I can help society the most. If they are successful in changing the minds of reporters and consumers, my job is likely to be eliminated someday or the pay is likely to be substantially reduced. People will suffer greater inaccuracies in their court records because ASR is 25 to 80% accurate and non-stenographers transcribe English dialects like African American Vernacular English (AAVE) at a rate half as accurate as court reporters. To me, there is no greater dishonor than to do well and lift the ladder up while others are trying to climb. Not only are companies attempting to lift the ladder, they are indifferent to the fact that they would hurt people in the process.

I tried to be diplomatic about it for four years. I tried to convince colleagues and companies in a more polite, erudite manner. I made a very open warning that if they did not make companies where we were the standard, we would build them. We’re building. Look at the lawyers who started Steno. They put us in the name of their company. Not to mention Steno Captions LLC, a company that not only put Steno in the name, but gave me solid data that helped me show our field that VITAC was offering a disgustingly low amount of money. I’m not prescient, but I just told you that I love my field. I know my field. Humans are literally built to be this way; we get better and more knowledgeable at anything we do a lot. Now I have another open warning: Change direction or we will figuratively burn pathetic digital reporting businesses to the ground. It clearly isn’t as scalable or logistically feasible as it was thought to be and digital proponents look like clowns to anyone paying attention.

In this country, the elements for defamation are that plaintiff must prove defendant published a false statement of fact to a third party that causes damage to plaintiff. It’s been years of publishing information and not a single company has threatened to sue. That’s a clear indicator to me that I am accurate or real close in just about everything I publish, including that big companies may well be facing financial trouble. Sooner or later, the majority of reporters are going to work out that I am publishing truth. They will, as I have, work out that millions of dollars don’t mean much if these companies don’t have a good business model. By trying to force us out of the market, companies are giving themselves 27,000 competitors, a move that should make shareholders physically ill. No longer will we accept the false narrative that “there’s nothing they can do.” They’re bright people. Insist that they figure it out and see how fast they figure it out. Tell them to stop throwing up their little social media posts or reporter corners and calling that support while they put advertisement dollars and training effort down on digital. Nobody who thinks about the situation for more than a minute or two believes that they’re using digital because they can’t find stenographers. We have a national database of stenographers that goes underutilized. How do I know it’s underutilized? Easy. When I was a young reporter, I got inundated with emails from agencies that found me on Sourcebook. Today, after about four years of blogging, out of all the garbage-like companies that were pushing garbage-like product, namely US Legal, Planet Depos, and Veritext, I have received maybe one email looking for reporters, if that. Other companies are writing me and looking for stenographers. We certainly don’t see any recruitment campaigns as we do with digital. One email in four years? Nothing they can do? How about working with the very established industry that they’re operating in instead of trying to outsmart it? Tipping points are hard. Not getting fully behind stenographers is going to be much, much harder for businesses. Look at the news. Watson didn’t work out. Automation is looking less likely every day. Even the poster child for automation, Elon Musk, is having a rough time making good on his big tech promises. What hope does anyone with less fame or money have? We’re not even playing particularly rough and digital proponents can’t make it work. What happens to big firms when reporters start poaching clients, publishing invoices, publishing client lists, and creating marketing firms that could eclipse the annual marketing budget of any court reporting firm in the country? Again, this is not prescience, it’s observation. I am one guy with a blog. I have about as much money as the bear that wasn’t a bear. If I am able to poke holes and publish things that professional news organizations miss, just imagine what any person reading this is capable of, let alone many thousands of court reporters. That TikTok I posted Monday said it best: Do not fuck with stenographers.

In addition to changing the strategy from diplomacy to Hell March 2, I have to now point out the inherent flaws of relying on Ducker’s 2013 information in 2021. The industry outlook is eight years old at this point. Stenographers had a choice in 2013, go big or go home. After that time, NCRA A to Z, Project Steno, and Open Steno all went big. Plenty of other reporters did too. Kim Xavier began Stenovator Pathway Solutions. Allison Hall set up programs and initiatives to get students in schools and help them find their way, and most recently received an award from the Oklahoma judiciary. Katiana Walton started training people under StenoKey. Shaunise Day started Confessions of a Stenographer. Protect Your Record Project set up strategies to help educate consumers against the pushing of inferior digital reporting products. NCRA Strong created resources for members to help educate consumers. So many people did so many things that I regret ending the list there. The recruitment and content creation efforts of stenographers didn’t double or triple, it exploded exponentially into a runaway train that only keeps accelerating and will only go faster now. Ducker’s top reason for low enrollment was that stenography was relatively unknown. That just isn’t going to be the case anymore. The median age of reporters in 2013 was 51 according to page eight of the report. Today, NCRA statistics state the median age of reporters is 55. It has been eight years. Without any activity whatsoever, the median age should have been 59. We can already see the results of our work.

Another “problem” with relying on the forecast or cherry-picking data from it is that focusing directly on the shortage ignores all the nuance and the actual messaging of the report. Let’s go through the report together and see just how much it supported the conclusion that stenographic court reporters were needed. Check out page six, where they published the segmentation of court reporters to voice writers.

Remember, this is 2013 data.

Voice writing is actually a decent product. Yet voice writers still were only 4% of the field. For about five years companies stood silent. When they had the slightest hiccup in scheduling, 2018, they went digital because “stenographers take too long to train and have too high of a failure rate.” If that were true, perhaps they would have built the voice writing side of their business, since it was already far more established as a modality than digital reporting. It is far more likely that some companies’ ultimate goal is to offshore the work, a disastrous result for our justice system in America due to the fact that offshore transcribers will be beyond the subpoena power of local and state courts. Even if it is not the goal, it is the logical consequence of moving reporter transcription from the front end to the back end and taking us away from public view. What school would open to fill a job that nobody sees or knows about?

The number of reporters entering and retiring is touted by know-nothing companies like US Legal as the reason the stenographer shortage cannot be solved by recruiting more reporters. Recently they put out that we have an annual shrinkage of 920, and I explained why, even assuming that was true, they were wrong. The equation they presented would eventually lead to negative stenographers, which is impossible if there are 200 new entrants a year. Ducker also explains why they’re wrong. At the worst of our decline, when the study was commissioned, we had an estimated 1,500 entrants coming into the field from 2013 to 2018, about 300 a year. Are we really to believe that with all of the effort going into training court reporters and bringing attention to the field that the number of annual new entrants fell between now and then?

It took eight years for our median age to rise by four years.
That means we’re winning.

In addition to Ducker’s forecast with regard to the actual number of opportunities, there was data about violent crime which led to them to believe the demand for criminal court reporters would go up. According to them, it was trending up at that moment.

Trending up, but still negative until 2012.

But when we look at sites like Statista, we see that the violent crime did rise for about three years as predicted by Ducker. Then it started falling again. It is hard to say, given the events of 2020 and 2021, where that per capita violent crime rate is going to go in the years to come. But what we can see with clarity is that Ducker’s information became outdated on violent crime as quickly as 2016. That leads us to the question: What other information might be outdated that we simply do not know about?

Fun fact. You can prove violent video games do not cause violence because violent crime went down while violent video games prospered.

The next few pages of the Ducker Report focus on the demand for stenographic court reporters. It’s probably the single greatest marketing piece of its time for us. We needed people, and the forecast told us that. Page 13 of the report gave us some striking infographics that let us know California and the west coast were going to have the hardest time with meeting the demand.

If California survived past its catastrophic 2018 opportunity, I am pretty sure the rest of the country is going to be okay.
Their shortage is nearly 20x worse than the rest of the country and they have some of the craziest licensing laws there are.

The rest of the report focuses on state projections. Some states were projected to have a surplus. This means that any state with a surplus could theoretically lose reporters to states with shortage problems and still be fine. This is likely what occurred in 2020 when depositions moved online. The fact that depositions moved online and companies continued to push digital is another clear indication that this was never about the shortage. It was about messaging. Signal to reporters that their job is over and get them repeating that news over and over under the mantra of “nothing else we can do but go digital.” Let me pull a word from Stacey Raikes’s amazing JCR article: Hogwash. It was a sweet lie to ride on. It’s over now. And make no mistake that it is a lie so blatantly obvious that I predicted it would occur back in February, writing “there will be a strong push from certain entities to say there aren’t enough of us. That will happen regardless of the truth.” Let’s repeat this: Stenographic reporting is here to stay. There is a place for every single one of our students as long as they work hard and do good work.

So was Ducker Worldwide wrong? Not by my assessment. They made an accurate forecast based off accurate data that existed when the industry outlook was written. That said, as an industry, we need to stop letting others tell us what the report said, really look at it, and encourage colleagues to look at it. It was a message that stenographers were needed. The shortage was not ever impossible to solve. That was a lie propagated by STTI that the corporations picked up when they saw a chance at pushing our educated and highly trained workforce out so that they could exploit digital reporters. Offshore transcribers are also being exploited, with some of them being paid as little as $0.80 a page or $0.24 a minute. The only way that we get pushed out is if we let it happen. I began documenting these events years ago with hope that we would not. Don’t let me down.

Two years ago. This didn’t age well. About six months later the study “racial disparities in automatic speech recognition” was released and showed us ASR was 25 to 80% accurate depending on who’s speaking. Given old patents that show 92% ASR accuracy was possible in 2000, the idea that growth was exponential became laughable.

Addendum:

An awesome Reddit user pointed out that the way I describe the median age here does not account for retiring reporters and assumes none retired out. To that, I would have to partially agree, but also point out that Ducker conceded that many reporters stay past the retirement age, as shown in purple below. The number of reporters that reached retirement age in the last 8 years was not the retirement cliff we have been anticipating. The next ten years is the retirement cliff. So I see it as I do because the reporters that were not yet retirement age as of the Ducker Report are likely to still be with us in large numbers, with some exceptions, such as our very recently retired and beloved Dominick Tursi. Given the substantial increase in stenographic reporter recruitment in the last 8 years, the logical conclusion is that the reporters staying past retirement age are bringing the median age up. There is no doubt that we need to continue our recruitment efforts, but we should no longer be swayed by the arguments that the situation is “impossible.”

“Taking into account that court reporters tend to stay in the workplace longer than average…”