This article was recently posted to the Stenonymous Facebook group.

According to the article, Paul Gaynor is the lobbyist and spokesperson for the Coalition to Capture the Record, an organization I wrote about recently. The companies behind the Coalition do not want to identify themselves to Law360 right now, with Paul Gaynor being quoted, “we’re just rolling this out and we’re getting our ducks in a row…” “We’re not really interested in disclosing it right now. This isn’t some big secret.”

“It’s not a big secret that we’re keeping this secret.”

Mr. Gaynor, were we born yesterday?

Sue Terry, former President of the National Court Reporters Association and current chair of the NCRA Strong Committee is quoted as saying “legitimate organizations prioritize transparency and want to be accessible to the public.” “The absence of clear contact details, physical address, direct telephone numbers, coupled with the lack of publicly accessible ownership information would be giant red flags for me.”

National Court Reporters Association President Kristen Anderson is also quoted. “I am unsure how any reputable entity would venture to gather industry recognition, respect, and reputation by remaining anonymous.” “Since their [motto] is ‘collaborating to ensure equal access to justice’ on their website, how is that even done if you do not know who is sponsoring the platform for ‘collaborating’?” “Unmasking the arcane presentation of this coalition would serve the best interests of the public, the legal system, the bar, the judiciary, and legal advocacy organizations across the country.”

I don’t want to steal Mr. Lerner’s thunder. If you have any interest, you should go read the article. Sorry about the paywall. I will say that it uses California’s shortage, forecasted to be 20x worse than some other parts of the country, to make the case for “real” shortage. It’s kind of like sticking your head in an oven and claiming the whole room is too hot. It also ignores the elephant in the room that they were not using funds earmarked to obtain and retain court reporters while going to the media and crying shortage. It also ignores the fact that the better-paid private sector work is getting covered with far fewer problems. No money, big problems. Meanwhile we have these little shadow groups throwing money on digital all damn day.

I will say this too: There are two lines in the article that make me laugh.

1. “The exact degree of the shortage has been debated in the legal industry for years, with some stenographers arguing that legal service organizations exaggerate the shortage to drum up new digital court reporting business.” We haven’t been arguing. We documented and exposed this fraud. You refuse to write that because you or the folks above you discriminate against people with disabilities. That’s okay. Don’t worry. Society is on your side. It’ll be a funny thing if my field ever funds me enough to light Law360 on literary fire for failing to address a fraud being perpetrated against civil litigation lawyers that’s been public knowledge for *checks notes* almost 3 years. I’m sure your subs will go up when that becomes more widely known.
2. “The Speech to Text Institute, a former nonprofit that advocated for a similar position, disbanded after 2022.” In actuality, stenographers backing me helped me expose them for fraud, leading to Trey Perez’s eventual lawsuit against them and others, which the Speech-to-Text Institute has not “legally” answered to. In fact, the organization replied to the lawsuit after its “disbanding”, just not with a legal document known as an “answer.”

There has not been much movement on the lawsuit front. The most recent docket report shows no changes from the last time I viewed it. Available below.

All my creative language aside, appreciate the article very much. Hope to see more that I can share from Mr. Lerner and Law360. The stenographic community loves coverage. I don’t know if Law360 can turn that into subscription dollars, but it ought to try. After all, I bought a subscription to the New York Law Journal. I could easily see myself picking up one for Law360 next year.

P.S.

To my fans that participate in Protect Your Record Project group or activities, it’s my humble opinion that you can help protect the record by letting attorneys know the Veritext fraud is public knowledge. They can Google it. The whole world can Google it. And Veritext let the statute of limitations on defamation lapse so it will literally never be disputed in a court of law. A few of you have come to me and said they’re so upset with Veritext and the prices and yadda yadda. Capitalize on that.

The more lawyers that learn about this fraud, the more that might report it to the FTC. If enough do, the FTC might actually do something. It’s as simple as that. If nothing else, as word spreads, news media might be more amenable to publishing the truth instead of its groupthink garbage.

Perhaps donate to PYRP today instead of Stenonymous.

All I’m saying is… let’s make this a reality:

Addendum:

I later was told Law360 is a strict B2B provider and the cost is at least a few hundred dollars a month. So that impacts some of the comments I made on this page.