Why You Can’t Trust Lexitas’s Statement About Deposition Insights

Lexitas has a new product called Deposition Insights. Seems like it makes automated deposition digests, something that used to be the domain of paralegals from all I know. Overall, I don’t really care about this product because other companies are already doing this and there’s no realistic way to stop it from occurring unless I get more funding and can hire people to investigate how good it really is. Probably not happening. Moving on.

While I don’t particularly care about the existence of the product, I do care very much about stenographer gullibility. Somebody said they were really happy it only comes with purchase of a transcript. I don’t have anything against that person. It’s a fair feeling by itself. But Stenonymous is, in part, about looking at things in the context of history.

So here goes.

1. Given that they are one of four or five national agencies, they could get in trouble with tying products under the antitrust laws at some point. This would be legal pressure to untie the products, much the same way I hope to pressure NCRA to untie its membership from its certs.

2. This is a statement, not an enforceable guarantee. Veritext made a statement in 2019 that stenographers were the life-blood of the industry.

Veritext proceeded to join in on the efforts of a fraud nonprofit that used its influence to exaggerate and exacerbate the stenographer shortage; mislead jobseekers, consumers, and court reporters; and advertise digital court reporting relentlessly for the better part of the next half decade.

So let’s look at the history of our field for a second. These companies have relentlessly lied and cheated, even allegedly stealing from their own employees. U.S. Legal itself bought and killed Stenotrain while crying shortage. Every step of the way we’ve been lied to by companies that have assured us “no, no, no, we’re not going to get rid of you! You’re valuable to us!”

Simply put, how long before clients ask for Deposition Insights without buying the transcript? Because that’s about how long you’ve got before they untie the product and this statement goes down as another agency lie.

Writing’s on the wall folks. Believe the comfortable lie over the cold truth if you’d like. I study propaganda for fun. Agency propaganda has been fooling stenographers for decades. Seems that despite my efforts it will continue to.

Addendum:

I later saw a posting that convinced me the person I was speaking about above is not in fact gullible. My apologies for putting things the way I did.

Florida: They’re Cutting Us Out. Other States Are Next.

As the corporate consolidation of America continues, I received correspondence from a valued reader and donor I’d like to share.

“Hi Chris!

I’m not sure that we have spoken before directly, but I am a monthly supporter of your blog. I just read the post about the Lexitas independent contractor agreement, and it made me wonder if you’ve heard about this new practice they have in some jurisdictions of automatically recording the ENTIRETY of a Zoom meeting for depositions. Obviously, it’s kind of messed up because there are personal conversations that sometimes happen between clients, counsel, and witnesses before and after the deposition officially begins along with plenty of “off-the-record” exchanges such as social security numbers and dates of birth. I figure that’s their legal problem since they’re doing it. (In fairness, the parties do get an alert they have to click through that it is being recorded.)

But from an “independent contractor” perspective, they’ve previously required us to turn over our notes in order to be paid. Many of us simply refused, as it is OUR work product and we carry our own liability insurance policies in case of catastrophic failure.

But now they’ve taken that choice away from ALL stenographers. I’m hearing rumblings that the the plan is to have a nice and clear recording because they’re pissing off stenographers left and right, and now that they have these recordings, they can outsource them to typists and the reporter will lose all control of the final transcript and, perhaps the most annoying, the income.

Have you heard anything of this? Do we have any recourse at all short of refusing to cover their work?

This could be a problem unique to Florida since we have a lot of jobs that don’t order until weeks, months, or years later.

I don’t know if Lexitas reporters in other markets would even care since it isn’t affecting them YET, which has been my unfortunate experience when trying to rally other stenographers to demand change.

Thoughts? Advice? I’ve thought of requesting an NCRA Cope opinion on it, but I am not exactly succinct and unbiased in my presentation.

Appreciate all that you do!”

And, for the record, I responded:

“Hello. I’m not sure we’ve spoken directly either but I deeply appreciate your donations. It is people like you that will put Stenonymous on the map.

I have heard of similar stuff occurring. it’s pretty certain the big boxes are outsourcing. I’ve seen advertisements myself. Though I haven’t been told about any specific agreement. They’re also using influencer culture to fill seats.

I do not know of an easy solution here. The recourse would be social, legal, or political in my view. Socially, we can withhold work as you said. But it’s my view that we can also create a media firestorm that highlights the degradation of quality and the overcharging of consumers, alongside the lawbreaking I write about. This has been the point of most of my work and a part of my publishing strategy. Most of the field plays this more proper, professional role while I attempt to reach wider audiences through this “writing shock jock” routine. I am hopeful that the end result is that the companies start second guessing their choices, because I am almost certain their choices are costing them more than they’re letting on.

Legally, if we could find a statute that they’re violating, someone might have a cause of action against them, and they can sue. Kind of like the Holly Moose case, except this time, hopefully whoever it is would win a la StoryCloud. In my case, I’ve been putting my feelers out for potential claimants on the lawbreaking I found, but I haven’t found anyone willing to take this on.

Politically we can campaign for laws, but big money people who can hire lobbyists usually win that game.

In the end, whatever solution we have is likely going to require a lot of people coming together. We’re dealing with entities that make millions. And we should do this with or without our associations, because I have found that many associations are risk averse to the point of absurdity and to the point where their members’ jobs are now threatened because we spent decades failing to educate the public and explore the science behind what we do.

I have a big ask of you, and if you don’t want me to, it’s fine. But may I publish your email (redacting your personal information)? I believe that if other reporters become aware of the situation in Florida, they might coordinate with someone like Jackie Mentecky to push back.

There may not be easy answers. But I’m willing to work hard to find new ones.”

Lexitas’s Independent Contractor Agreement is an Example of Corporate Fear

Sometime at the end of last year, a Stenonymous source leaked Lexitas’s independent contractor agreement to me.

This kind of thing wasn’t a thing historically. Even when NYC passed that law where independent contractors needed a contract, a lot of “freelancers” didn’t get one.

You know what’s changed in the last 13 years? A popular court reporting blog popped up and started talking about employee misclassification and unionization. Safe bet that these people are paying attention and they’re afraid. Their misclassification of you is a massive liability. Let’s just say the workers comp insurers would have a field day if people were more assertive in exercising their rights.

First of all, let’s just say that in the event of a misclassification claim, hopefully a fact finder would consider who writes the contract. The more powerful entity, by far, is Lexitas. You want work? You’re gonna work on their terms. Of course you’re gonna sign the contract. They even go out of their way to say they’re not forming an agency relationship with the independent contractor. So court reporting agencies don’t want to call themselves agencies when it means you might be a misclassified employee.

The second laughable thing is that this contract has no consideration. There’s no point in signing it. They’re not promising you a damn thing. It says, in brief:

1. You’re an independent contractor.

2. You pay your own taxes.

3. You don’t solicit their clients, employees, or other independent contractors.

4. You use their formatting and submission portal. A/K/A they have direction and control over you for submission and completion of work. Just so we’re clear, independent contractors are supposed to be free of direction and control.

5. You’ll give them all your work products and notes when you’re done “independent contractoring” for them.

6. You’ll pay for all damages and attorney fees if you breach the agreement.

“We have no relationship, you’re independent from us, but you do everything in the way we like it and pay us if you don’t.”

Lexitas, fuck you (as an entity. Conceded many of your employees are going to be good people.) I hope every single “independent contractor” you had sign this sham goes right to a lawyer, claims misclassification, and gets their self-employment taxes back right out of your wallet and your workers comp insurance skyrockets because they realize you’ve misclassified a whole segment of your workforce. And I hope that when your dipshit lawyer brings this agreement into court, the misclassified employee’s lawyer brings my blog post into court and says “look, judge, even this idiot with the blog knows this is a scam meant to cover the ass of the agency while giving nothing to my client.” While I’m at it, let me put it out there that when another agency was challenged on this, they settled rather than get their ass kicked in court.

Alice Halbert’s class action settlement notice in a matter involving Atkinson-Baker

I may be on the losing side because my fellow court reporters can’t be bothered to protect their own interests in any substantial way, but hey, I tried. And lucky for me, if you keep doing what corporations do, squeezing and squeezing, eventually, they might try too, because the “pain” of trying something new will pale in comparison to the pain of all the revenue they’re generating for you being sucked away from them and their families by mankind’s greatest wealth-extraction device, the corporation.

For the record, I’m not opposed to making money. I’m as capitalist as they come and hoping that someday my writing is recognized, ahem, monetarily. I’m opposed to making money at the expense of all else. This isn’t limited to private sector. I’m opposed to the habitual collars for dollars crowd too.

But such is a story for another day.