Tag: economics

United States Supreme Court Rules Stenographers No Longer Required in Trial Courts…*

In a stunning turn of events, Chief Justice Honorable John G. Roberts declared that stenographers will no longer be necessary for the trial courts. “I am quite sure that we can just record it. Everyone knows that if you decrease the supply of court reporting vendors by getting rid of stenographers and the demand remains the same, prices will go down. That’s Economics 101. We could save the judiciary a lot of money by turning it completely over to corporations and paying them for a deficit product. The frequency of reconstruction hearings is only going to be as often as the audio fails, which we conveniently have and collect no data for, so it must be rare. I don’t really care to read trial court records before I make my rulings anyway. I’m ready for the future.” Stenonymous.com called for national protests, leading to a large gathering of stenography supporters in New York City.

Stenonymous.com calls for national protests in a new Supreme Court ruling. Stenonymous Satire Weekends.

In other news…

Inventor invents a new stenotype containing an actual C on the keyboard. Court reporters everywhere are furious!

Jury finds Staten Island stenographer guilty of blogging while under the influence, defendant remanded. Trial to be held five years from now due to understaffing.

NCRA Spokesperson: “Our next legislative move will be universal parking passes for stenographers. Never wait for your parking to get validated again.”

Commenting on the accuracy of court records, Elvis Presley has words for stenographers: Thank you very much.

Elon Musk dictates to classroom of stenographers in training.

First raise in 30 years! Local stenographer celebrates 10-cent surprise.

Suspect asks for a lawyer dog. Lawyer dog swears he’s not a cat. Stenographers weigh in.

*None of this is true. It is part of Stenonymous Satire Weekends, a project meant to entertain the court reporting audience of this blog and catch search engine attention by integrating court reporting with current events and prominent figures. We have a corporate fraud problem in court reporting that the media won’t report on and the government won’t do anything about, so we’re reduced to fundraising until we can simply advertise deluge-style and publicly shame all the people and organizations in power who had a chance to do something and didn’t. Until that fundraising comes in, which will be sometime between now and never, Stenonymous will continue to archive, entertain, and inform with the help of its audience and the stenographers that support the blog.

The picture is from the day of the Trump arraignment in New York City, but has been modified.

Based on the most current data, at 2% of revenue, court reporters could afford an annual advertising campaign of $21.6 million (assumes $60,000 median pay x 18,000 court reporters. In some estimates, there are as many as 30,000 court reporters. BLS statistics in court reporting may be inaccurate, as the BLS continues to decrease the number of jobs despite consistently forecasting an increase in the number of jobs.

Bureau of Labor Statistics on court reporters as of April 8, 2023.

Indiana’s Proposed Prohibition of Stenography and the Government’s Role in Court Reporting Economics

There is a proposed rule change for Indiana courts that seems to point to keeping stenographers out of the courtroom. Big thanks to Steno Strong and the stenographers that brought it to my attention. It’s pretty straightforward.

The Indiana government apparently seeks to purge stenography from court.

Much like Arizona, Indiana is asking for public comment. I’m feeling less dramatic than usual, so I gave it a shot.

Christopher Day (Stenonymous) responds to Indiana’s proposed purging of stenography from courts.

As I understand it, our institutions and many members of our community are already organizing a response. I would say get involved. Brainstorm on the best ways to phrase things or the right angle to go at this from. See if any attorney allies or anyone related to the legal field will pitch in a public comment. In my mind, it’s unquestionable that we have to give it to them straight. They’re handing an economic win to audio recording vendors. Once stenographic vendors are eliminated, price goes up. This is a concept so well understood that it’s part of the antitrust theory of predatory pricing. But there are probably dozens of arguments that I didn’t address that other stenographers can bring to the table more articulately.

This comes on the heels of the November 1, 2022 dissolution of the Indiana Court Reporters Association.

This is a convenient real-life example of how government impacts the demand for court reporters. They’re considering a rule change that would delete us from the courtrooms. They’re telegraphing a huge drop in court reporter demand. Is it any surprise that the market responds by training fewer court reporters? This is the deathblow I wrote about in 2018. How are we going to attract investors for stenographic education if a large purchaser of court reporting services, like the government, is saying “yeah, thanks for the memories?”

There were other comments far better than mine. Hopefully some of you will copy and paste yours below too.

We have to be assertive here. If not now, when? Again, public comments are open on the government site.

Addendum:

This article later came out about us being blindsided.