I’ve been on the consumer awareness game for a long time. But I realize my site’s hard to navigate for some. I’ll just put this on the front page. Hopefully it sums it up nicely.
The first game is that while companies grind down on the page rates — the primary income of the court reporter you’re working with — they come up with fees that most of us wouldn’t dream of charging. This has the effect of making what you’re actually paying more than what you would with a small business or sole proprietor while making it look like you’re getting a lower “price per unit.”
The second game is that they’ll send bills with no itemization so that you don’t even know what you’re paying for and have to interact with them to get it. This is a frustrating experience, so some of you will just pay it.
The third game is that they lie and bait and switch you, sending digital court reporters when you order stenographers and telling you stenographers aren’t available while telling stenographers their rates are too high or there’s not enough work. The nonprofit Protect Your Record Project was formed, in part, to educate about this one.
But to understand all this, you previously had to navigate my site and find articles like the ones I’m about to link. Now you can just read this. Hooray.
While court reporters in New York City are working for anything from $3.25 to $4.50 a page, here’s what’s happening around the country:
Lawyer effectively charged $10 a page.
Veritext effectively charged ~$11.47.
Companies may charge original rates for copy.
Word index rates same as transcribed pages.
Imagine effectively charges $9.44.
Paying for blatant inferior quality.
Huseby’s webconferencing charge rivals transcript.
Huseby effectively charges $8 a page.
Attorney says $4.20 charge unreasonable.
Published rates sole proprietors can beat.
Veritext effectively charged $37 a page.
FTR is paid $450 for a “deficit product.”
Basically the trust you have in us as guardians of the record and our whole “ethics culture” has been abused by some in the community taking you all for suckers.
And if you should happen to come across things on this site that make you question my mental state or personality, just remember that a large portion of it is a performative media style where I use propaganda techniques to tell the truth and educate people on those same techniques. I chose that because I detected that propaganda techniques and the Empty City Strategy were being used to bamboozle the women of court reporting and their clients — you. I did most of the zany stuff because it runs in stark contrast to the cottage industry of court reporting, where everything was (is?) molded to be our own mini-distortion of your ostensibly more conservative and “slow-to-change” legal world.
I played my part. It got people talking.
Now all of you have a choice. Share this with your fellow attorneys and play a part in shaping a more ethical world, or close me out and forget we had this moment together.
Just know that whatever you choose, I wish you the best.
KRORPS K- SHAEUR TAO FPLT
Addendum:
A reader felt my use of “women of court reporting” was cringe because there are many men in the field. This is true. No offense meant to anybody. I used the term because we’re 88% women and I thought some of my readers would appreciate it. If that’s not the case, I’m quite happy to not use it again.