…with love to Joshua Edwards, who also supported me throughout.
“I’m flexible on timeline. My method of documenting everything wasn’t the best looking back. But whose would have been?
I think big picture though, The Speech-to-Text Institute was this group of powerful corps (Veritext, et al.) that came together to propagandize the field and sell digital reporting. They used an outdated industry forecast (Ducker Report) and pushed out information with no adjustment for current industry initiatives (Project Steno, Open Steno, NCRA A to Z). I published about the fraud they were committing. They got sued (Trey Perez), shut down their website, and never bothered to defend themselves in court. Ultimately the court reporter shortage fraud was a little bit of truth, the retirement cliff and localized shortages, mixed with big lies about not being able to fill the gap with stenographers by corporations that had a financial interest in not filling the gap. To this day the fraud claims have not been seriously disputed by anyone of note. The worst I get is people that clearly haven’t read anything I’ve published who want to school me on how the shortage is real. It’s real, but it was exaggerated and exacerbated by the biggest names in the industry to sell digital. That’s the bottom line.
And beyond my role in it, being willing to document and publish what others couldn’t for whatever reasons, I think the story of the people that supported me really should be told. Because in the end it wasn’t just me. There were others that chose not to be named. There were people like Jackie Mentecky that came right out and vouched for the correctness of what I’d published. I owe them all in a way I’ll never be able to repay. To this day, I have people that were duped into legal transcription or digital reporting that tell me they found my stuff and want to switch over to steno. We have people realizing they’re misclassified employees on a scale never seen in this industry. So our efforts have not been in vain. I suppose from a certain point of view we’re winning because the larger corps can’t dispute anything without calling more attention to it all.
“Are we working together, or are we working against each other?” Cheri Marks speaks to Trey Perez
CM Would you mind starting by giving me a little background about yourself, where you’re from, and how you initially came to be involved with court reporting issues? TP My name is Trey Perez, and I’m a videographer from Texas and Central Texas. I have an associate’s degree in video technology. I want to make movies, but I got into the legal video business, and did that for 25 years. In 2019, I noticed there was a shortage of court reporters because of jobs that would be canceled. CM Could I back you up a little bit? How exactly does legal videography work? TP Sure. Back then it was separate. The attorneys would call the videographer, and then they would also call in a court reporter. The court reporting firms didn’t really handle a video then. They were strictly stenography. So in 2019 I got the idea to work on an app that would lay down the foundation of the transcript. CM Was there a defining moment that propelled you to design the stenography app? Or were you just watching the relationship between stenographers and videographers and sensing that it was inefficient? TP There’s a couple of different factors. One was the shortage of stenographers, and videographers losing jobs because of that. Then these companies, when there wasn’t a court reporter available, would hire us to go do video only depositions. One company in particular, Veritext, had a login which they wanted you to write down the times and objections etc. And so you would have this extra work to do. And I’m not very good at keeping notes. And so I had this friend of mine working on a website. He’s a very talented developer. And I told him about this situation and he developed the app for me. That’s why I created it, so that I could just take notes. By pressing a button, the speaker would change, it would designate who’s who. And that’s just how it started off. CM Do you think they initially were trying to cut corners and save money by having you do both the work of videographer and stenographer? TP No, I think there was a shortage. My understanding of the way it worked back then, was that the app would help the court reporter with her job, so that she could go back afterwards and listen to the audio, and know exactly where to go when listening for objections. They wanted us to take hand-written notes! The idea of having some sort of app that could simplify the process of finding objections seemed that it would just make the whole thing easier. CM Can you tell me how you got involved in the related antitrust lawsuits? How did you become aware of the criminality, and what were your first moves? TP The first thing was having a grievance filed against me by the president of the Court Reporters Texas Court Reporters Association. She’d sent me an email. And I was already getting little cryptic messages and things and telling me I was doing illegal things– CM By developing your app or by paying attention to–? TP By developing an app. That pissed off the court, big time. And so a grievance was filed against me. CM And what was the basis for the grievance? TP They said that I was trying to do court reporting. CM But isn’t that what they’d essentially asked you to do? TP When I came up with my app, I could produce a transcript easier and cheaper than the court reporters, but that wasn’t my intent. My intent was to offer it to them, and I did offer it to them. But no one would do business with me. It didn’t hurt the court reporting firms that the court reporters were upset with me. But still, they used the roar of the court reporters to shut me down. It was a tool to help the court reporters. And all the evidence will show that. It did change for me at one point, when there was no work left and my business was destroyed. By then I was just trying to make a living. But I did say that people could take a deposition without a court reporter, because everyone else was doing it! I never did this on my own. I never once built out a video-only deposition without a reporter unless the court reporting firm asked me to. So how can that be illegal? CM Right. And can you tell me then how it moved from you having a grievance filed against you to you being involved in that antitrust lawsuit from one to the next? TP For the grievance, I represented myself and it was dismissed. And then they appealed that dismissal and I got to speak again and they dismissed it again for the second time. And that’s their own body that governs the court reporting firms and the court reporters. But at that point, my business was devastated. There was so much evidence because the court reporters would taunt me on social media. They would post pictures or taunting videos along with my name, or make snide, thinly-veiled insults in my direction. So that pissed me off. Just the audacity: that I can’t even work now because I was developing a tool. CM It seems tragic, because presumably you and the stenographers shouldn’t even be the ones fighting. It seems like you both have a common enemy, which is these huge corporations that don’t have working people’s interests in mind. TP I tried to work with the court reporters here in Austin. I contacted a few, individual court reporters and asked them: what’s more important, your family or your career? Because it’s going to be a 20 billion dollar industry soon, and no one will be able to compete with that. I was trying to get the court reporters to come on board, and every time I talked to them, I said, we weren’t trying to replace court reporters. We were just trying to help out with the situation. They can deny it, but here in Texas, court reporters were getting 500 bonuses to up and leave a job they were supposed to do, if they got a better offer that same day. CM Geez. Do you feel like your reputation was smeared a bit unfairly? TP Oh, yeah, Most definitely. There’s a lot of rumors. It’s been difficult because when you don’t have any money, it’s hard to get representation. CM Are you still embroiled in the lawsuit, or are you past it at this point? TP I’m still involved. We’ve had really bad rulings, let’s put it that way. The name of my company was called Depo Notes, the notes of the deposition. And so the judge ruled that, in my case, that in my hands, that it was illegal. Check this out. So when I couldn’t find work, I started doing landscaping and mowing grass. And I would go into different neighborhoods to do this. So then when I’m cutting grass, there’s these certain people who keep coming around, riding their bikes around me and, like, making racialized judgements about me. I could just sense that, you know, with the political climate here in Texas, all this talk about “getting rid of illegal people” – and then here I have a judge telling me that I can’t use my tool, my app that I developed, and it’s illegal in my hands. Then when I go out to cut grass, I have this person wondering if I’m illegal or not. CM Oh my God. That’s awful, I’m sorry. I feel like this is important, and I’m curious now– do you think there was institutional racism involved in your initial vilification? TP No, I think that the industry is 85% white, though. Here’s the thing, though. Why would a judge even be bringing up that AI could hurt minorities? I even wrote that in when my attorney wanted to leave. I wrote an objection to him leaving. I put that in there. That from the beginning this has been biased. And judges, I know they have court reporters that have been with them for many years. But for him to rule the way he’s ruled–it’s odd. What’s funny is that people that believe in the law, they say, yeah, the Constitution, the Constitution. But yet when their man tries to overthrow our government, they forget about the Constitution then. CM Absolutely. TP In my case, the judge said that for me to have this app was illegal because every deposition in Texas must be taken by a stenographic court reporter. But one of the biggest plaintiffs firms in Texas just put out an ad, and he does 98% of his job without a court reporter. And how do I know? Because I did some. And he came out with an ad saying that in the past four years, he’s given away $1 billion to his clients. He didn’t advertise that, of course, that he did it all without a court reporter. CM Do you feel like you were too primed for success and they wanted to quash you and take your ideas? TP No, it was because the firms themselves were worried. They were threatened by the app. But the court reporters are just worried about their jobs. Why didn’t they get on the court reporting firms that were hiring me asking me to do this? That’s who they should have been after. CM It’s easier to punch down than to punch up, right? TP Right. And I think that they thought I was just gonna go away, you know, and I’m not. Because it’s hard to argue that the rules and laws apply to only me in this case. I don’t think they should be able to win. CM So when you win, you could very well be setting a legal precedent, perhaps, for this kind of case. TP That’s what I feel is going to happen. CM Is there an end in sight? Or is it one of those kind of entrenched legal things where it’s hard to know when it’s going to end? TP It’s hard to know. And right now, I don’t have counsel. My attorney withdrew, and I don’t even know why– “irreconcilable differences” he wrote. The real “differences” were that he wasn’t willing to fight for me. We had even agreed that these rulings were wrong, but there was nothing he could do about it. It’s about the truth. That’s what we do is we take testimony down. And, you know, I know it’s a talent to be able to type fast, and that’s a skill and it’s worth some money. It has value. And. But when you don’t have that– because not every court reporter is the same– you could be greatly assisted by using this type of technology. CM What do you think about, the claims that AI has an inherent racism to it because of the people that are building it and the speed at which it’s being kind of put into the world before being read by an ethics committee, for example, or do you have any opinion on that? TP I think that a human being, at the end of the day, is the one that signs off. AI is not going to be certifying itself. You would have someone reading [post trial, in this case] it and cleaning it up, and we could be improving the performance of the tool in this way. CM You can check accuracy against AI instead of just giving over all the responsibility. So at this point, have they shuttered your business and have they told you you’re not allowed to reopen it, because it’s illegal? TP No. Once money stops coming in and work stops coming in for a couple years, your developer gets pissed and, you know, those relationships don’t last. So development stops and then, you know, then everything stops. CM I’m so sorry. Do you feel like you’ll have the drive at some point to develop a new app? Or are you kind of done with it? TP I’m done with it, yeah. So this will be, understandably, my last fight. And that is to change the way that I’ve asked this question on social media, on LinkedIn: can a deposition be taken in Texas without a court reporter? Yes or no. CM Why are they afraid to say? TP Because if they say yes, then that helps my case. But if they say no, they’re lying, because they’re doing it already. CM So, they’ve put you and court reporters between a rock and a hard place just to benefit this huge Speech to Text Institute and these corporations that are developing the same software. TP When they filed a grievance against me, I spoke anyway. So the reporters are commenting on this thread and they say: “He spoke at the meetings. He says he can’t find work. Says he’s basically been blackballed or boycotted”. And then the next person chimes “Hell yes, we did!” And another one writes “He bit the hand that fed him. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Maybe if he would have stayed in his lane”…that kind of thing CM It’s really a shame. I wanted to ask you how you felt about Stenonymous’s previous coverage of your lawsuits– and if you felt it was too focused on the speech to Tech Institute involvement. TP No, I just think that he’s biased and he’s on the side of the court reporters. I haven’t done anything illegal. There is no evidence stating I did anything wrong. We were never reprimanded for developing a tool, a tool that they’re actually using now. CM It seems like you’re just being bullied. If that were to stop, could you see any opportunity for collaboration with court reporters happening in the future, for example with sympathetic figures or outlets like Stenonymous? TP I don’t see it because it’s just been too much. You know, last time I went into the deposition, I got kicked out. So, I just don’t see it. You know, I’d walk in a room and I’d get this just look of disdain. And then the court reporters got racist, too. You know, saying I was jealous of them. One lady, and her husband represents some of the court reporters that are defendants in this case, even went as low to repeat the racist stereotype, “most Hispanic men are short and have ego issues” CM That’s really awful, I’m sorry. TP So, they talk about how AI can be biased. But that lady just proved that a court reporter can be biased as well. The court reporter is taking live deposition, and she’s biased right there in your face. CM So what’s your best case scenario, both with the legal case and your own future and career? TP My end goal is to set a precedent here in Texas, and that’ll be my legacy. The testimony in Texas will be able to be taken down by other means, not just stenographically. And it’ll be clear, you know, because apparently there’s currently this gray area. I want it to be clear because litigants should have a choice. That’s why I feel like I have a case. I’m gonna appeal. So they can be happy all they want, but it’s not over. It got personal. CM I look forward to hearing about your success with this case, and you setting the precedent. TP Did you hear about the case that was filed by the court reporters against the NCRA? It was on Stenonymous– the court reporters filed a lawsuit against their association, antitrust as well. Okay. So that brought up another topic: that videographers record the court. And the court could want our audio. And under the NCRA, if you’re a certified legal video specialist, you have to give it to them, that’s just courtesy. But the thing is, they’re suing the NCRA, the court reporters, because in order to become certified, and stay certified, a court reporter has to take these continuing education courses. And in order to do that, they have to have a membership with the NCRA. And so that’s why they’re saying that there’s an antitrust lawsuit there. They don’t have any competitors. And then the videographer would just have to give away his work product. And that’s a thing that I have an issue with now, because here I was getting blackballed. And then I’d go to a job and the court reporter would want my audio for free. And I’d be like, damn, are we working together or are we working against each other? They would say that we’re working together, but it didn’t seem that way… CM It seems like there’s a lot of elements at play here. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. I wish you the best. TP Thank you
The only question I had upon reading a recent article about LA was whether David Slayton, Los Angeles county executive/clerk of court for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County is ignorant or a talented liar.
It’s not too farfetched, at this point in history, to believe that maybe some people in official positions are ignoring the reality of the court reporter shortage fraud and the indelible fact that private money was used to exaggerate and exacerbate the stenographer shortage. Arizona officials more or less ignored us. Officials from New York and the FTC have ignored us. The attorney general of California ignored us. Texas and California both ignore their own licensing laws in favor of screwing the working reporter. Everyone in government seems to believe that if a fact is ignored it becomes less factual.
And in fact, that’s what the sham of a journalist, Makenna Sievertson, seems to believe as well, with her headline that pretends that court officials really are doing everything in their power to help the shortage. I have no problem, at this point in history, putting it out there that any journalist or outlet that ignores the court reporter shortage fraud in favor of the shortage narrative is a corporate shill unfit to publish fiction, let alone news. Many of my contemporaries would cringe at me making an enemy of media. But I have news for you: Media has been our enemy for years. I’ve spoken to several journalists and they either don’t run the story (understandable), publish about the shortage and omit the fraud claims (questionable), or engage in “journalistic equalizing” at the expense of the truth (unforgivable). I’m fed up. I’m done playing games. Any journalist that fails to mention the fraud that the whole world can Google will find themselves deservedly on the receiving end of my ire. (Google: Veritext fraud, court reporter shortage fraud, digital court reporting scam, or Speech-to-Text Institute.)
This isn’t particularly hard. The government doesn’t have to broadcast that there was a fraud perpetrated. All they have to do is look at the cold, hard truth. A shortage was forecasted over a decade ago. Several large corporations got together behind the Speech-to-Text Institute about 5 years ago and republished modern materials about the shortage forecast without adjusting for all the things we’ve done since to address the shortage, such as the A to Z program, Project Steno, and Open Steno. Then, after being publicly accused of fraud, their frontman Jim Cudahy jumped ship, the organization was sued, their website was shut down, and Stenograph’s then-president publicly distanced himself from the organization. Conveniently documented in real time by yours truly.
And so, to David Slayton and all of the other sand spiders with their fingers in their ears, how about you spend a little less time running to the media about how bad the shortage is, which is obviously a bid to push us out for your beloved audio recorders, pick up the damn phone, and use your office to get some attention on the obvious fraud committed that’s making your recruitment efforts so hard? I’m sure you’ll concede that there ARE executive agencies meant to deal with such things. I’m sure you’ll concede that those agencies DO give more weight to complaints from people like YOU than people like me. And unless you have a financial interest in those recording companies, there’s no real reason for you not to step in and do the right thing other than your own cowardice.
I’m not alone. There are people like me, like Protect Your Record Project in California, Jackie Mentecky in Florida, and all of their supporters, who have raised concerns about the validity of the shortage claims as they were presented to the public by these private equity corporations I blog about.
Let me make something clear. People like me — that is to say, average working people and their families — have the power to take on organizations with millions of dollars. You deny the truth at your own peril. At the end of the day, people are not stupid, and they will see through your shallow words about people’s families for the fact that you’ve done precious little to make a difference for those same families. And when they see through that, perhaps you should not be allowed to keep your position, and be replaced by someone with the mettle required to do right and be good.
And to the court reporters and average people that want to get serious about engaging with professional liars in government and beyond, consider a donation to Stenonymous today via the donation box on the front page, Venmo @Stenonymous, or PayPal / Zelle at ChristopherDay227@gmail.com. At the end of the day, my effectiveness is linked to your financial support, information you share, and the sharing of my work. American journalism and media is very much pay to play, and I think it’s about time we get in the game and win. If not for ourselves, then for the many millions of people whose views are not represented by corporate media. What we are writing is a blueprint for many to follow. Where that will lead?
The headline is more or less the post. It’s come to my attention that the National Court Reporters Association will be discontinuing the NCRA Strong task force, later known as the NCRA Strong committee.
NCRA Strong was working on a great many things including gathering information about digital and AI failures. And from my own time there, I can honestly say that we were hamstrung every single step of the way by NCRA’s administration and organization. There were always excuses as to why things couldn’t, wouldn’t, or shouldn’t be done. They mothballed our white paper up until I published that they had mothballed the white paper and then quietly discontinued the committee within a year or so after. What an outrageous thing to do.
This marks a turning point in NCRA’s ethos. We should leave it in the dust bin where it belongs and form a new national association. If you haven’t dropped your membership yet, here’s your sign.
Always remember that the association was able to address the lies promoted by the Speech-to-Text Institute. It instead let independent publishers and activists like myself hang in the wind. The Speech-to-Text Institute, after being accused of fraud, quietly shut down its website in 2023.
And what a coincidence that NCRA Strong members validated some of my work indirectly and they’re now being disbanded. Some will blame Keith Lemons. Some will blame Dave Wenhold. Whatever the case, the National Court Reporters Association has indelibly proven itself to be an entity that does more harm than good by giving volunteers the feeling that they are doing good while quietly snuffing out anything that actually does good. It’s a political play that I can see a mile away, and I’m hopeful my fellow court reporters do too. We are being sabotaged and the knives have finally come out.
There’s some rumor of a new replacement committee. What does that accomplish? Pushing the people that have been doing this for years out of the seat for people that can be coached and directed easier.
I have a message from someone close to my heart. Go rogue. Get shit done.
Two stenographers sit at their desks working rapidly behind a bundled man who wears a sign reading Stenonymous.com. The man staunchly holds up his hand in the gesture of “stop!” at a massive steamroller emblazoned with the letters STTI and henched by two evil capitalist boss-types, which is moving to run them all over.
As with much great satire, we are presented here with an ancient depiction of inequality: the powerful drivers of economic “progress” crushing the very people whose industry they purport to advance. In this cartoon, a lone man desperately puts his body in the path of the massive machine, indignant, recalling the famous photo from Tiananmen Square-– he knows that stopping the machine’s advance is a life or death situation. Behind the cartoon’s two stenographers working away, however, I imagine thousands more at their desks, who can’t see the tank coming, and won’t until it’s too late. Like a stop sign in the middle of it all, alluded to by the man’s Stenonymous.com sandwich sign, is that ephemeral thing that might just save the little guys– an information commons.
The average person may not be aware of the current plight of the stenographic community, but to the workers themselves it is unavoidable. The lettering STTI refers to the Speech To Text Institute, a recently formed and deeply dysfunctional corporate conglomerate pushing the replacement of traditional stenography by A.I. captioning. Their tactic? Aggressively manufacturing the idea of a shortage of so many willing and able stenographers.
It’s disturbing to think that a computer program would replace the very specific art of stenography, considering the sensitive nature of on- and off-the-record courtroom language. A.I. inherently lacks the ability to distinguish between registers and tone, not to mention its built-in biases. It would be a telling exercise, for example, to have AI interpret the same cartoon that I am now. Because reporting is not purely mechanistic– like writing and reading satire, it requires a decidedly human savvy.
Despite my personal convictions, STTI proposes a real threat to the already vastly undervalued stenography community. We can safely assume the man with the sandwich board in the cartoon is one whose job has already been displaced. And the men at the helm of “the STTI”, emblazoned like a war ship, are laughing all the way to the bank, with a chauvinistic belief that they are winning at a life built on the backs of others.
What steamrolling organizations like STTI forget is, at the end of the day, stenographers are writers, witnesses. The women, the workers, in the cartoon are transcribing their experience, even as it gets closer to destroying them.
Cartooning, writing and reading are all forms of collectivizing. Political cartoons date back to the late 18th century, where they were posted on public walls and published in newspapers. If STTI continues with its socio-economic bullying of stenographers, and its manufactured crisis of labor, they should expect a lot more of this kind of creative blowback.
…….
My name is Cheri Marks and I am a poet interested in stenography and many other forms of writing. Thank you for reading and check back at Stenonymous.com soon for more of my literary-flavored missives.
I’ve been slacking on our favorite Texas Western District Court case. Perez had contacted me at some point saying I should look into the case. I wish I’d done it sooner.
Unfortunately, I am trying to keep my billable pages under 30 with PACER so that I don’t have to pay any money. So I’m going to include the docket report and a few select documents below.
There’s been a lot of back and forth, looks like a dismissal with prejudice at some point. A scheduling order was also filed. Lots of motions and replies.
Of course, my interest is with regard to the Speech-to-Text Institute. The organization was ordered to appear through a licensed attorney. It failed to do so. Subsequently, an order to show cause was issued. So STTI may have defaulted. I suspect this is because it has no value and therefore nothing to lose. But it will be really interesting if they ever get to the part where STTI’s materials were being used around the country to mislead decision makers and break non-digital businesses in favor of what I’ve termed the STTI Bloc, a group of relatively powerful corporations in our field that had representatives on the STTI board, including names like U.S. Legal Support, Veritext, and Stenograph. Notably, Veritext has allowed me to associate its name with fraud for the last several years despite being directly informed of what I was doing and its propensity toward harassing reporters for what they post on Facebook.
When you Google Veritext fraud, there’s a chance you’ll find my work.
They have to complete discovery on or before February 28, 2025. Good luck, folks!
————-
Addendum:
Footage of Trey Perez being kicked out of a deposition was later brought to my attention. We continue to follow the court process for updates about the group boycott of his business.
Trey Perez’s lawsuit against many defendants has been partially dismissed. Notably, it seems that plaintiff Depo Notes lacked standing because it was not complying with the law. For many of the defendants, insufficient facts were pled to allege group boycott or illegal anticompetitive behavior.
The case against the Texas Court Reporters Association is done.
The case was also ended against Kennedy Reporting Service and Lorrie Schnoor; Sonia Trevino and Sherri Fisher; Shelly Tucker; Court Reporters Clearinghouse.
Lexitas and Southwest are still stuck defending against claims.
I want to note that the study I always mention, Racial Disparities in Automatic Speech Recognition, was also mentioned in the order.
Texas Federal Court acknowledges the Racial Disparities in Automatic Speech Recognition (Western District)
I see no mention of the Speech-to-Text Institute, so I’ll have to check PACER, but as of my last update, they were still in the case and hadn’t made a proper motion to dismiss, instead opting to send a “response to civil action.” I may not be a lawyer, but I previously believed that a response to civil action was an “answer” or a “motion to dismiss.”
I can’t help but continue to strongly believe that non-digital providers might be able to make a claim stick against Speech-to-Text Institute and many of the corporations that were represented on it, including Veritext and US Legal Support. Think about it.
STTI Bloc 1) Engaged in a conspiracy to manipulate the market toward digital reporting. This is all but assured considering they’ve been unable to write an effective cease-and-desist letter, or any letter, or even make a comment stating these allegations are untrue, for over two years of me publishing about it. 2) This inherently restrains trade. If you’re collectively using your considerable market power (Veritext alone may be more than 16% of the market’s revenue) to push out non-digital providers and then using your considerable market influence (there are only like five “nationals”) to convince consumers those non-digital providers don’t exist, what can it be called but a restraint of trade? You’re trying to destroy those non-digital businesses or force them to buy digital tech from your buddy, fellow STTI conspirator, Stenograph. 3) in a particular market. Well, court reporting.
And that’s just looking at those elements for group boycott. I’m quite sure if I went through all the law in the United States, I’d find other things that make it illegal to get together, publish substantial lies about a market, and mislead consumers, jobseekers, and other small businesses. Maybe there are laws against deceptive business practices and false advertising. Maybe. Who knows?
(NOTE: Facetious. Those laws exist.)
And the best part is that to claim they didn’t know the information they were publishing was wrong, the multimillion dollar corporations have to go under oath and say they never did the math on the statistics they published and it didn’t seem odd that they were projecting a shortage constituting a third of the field by 2023 with likely less than five percent of their business going uncovered, a number that existed before the 2018 “tipping point.”
Maybe this is a runaway train at this point. Maybe some stenographic and other non-digital providers are going to realize they have standing and take a crack at STTI and the corporations that were represented on its board. I reached out to Lex Ferenda a long time ago and they basically said that if we could find an appropriate claimant and lawyer, they’d consider funding the litigation. At the very least, perhaps people that have suffered damage will reach out to the FTC and their state attorney general and let them know to Google the court reporter shortage fraud and that this fraud has hurt their business, or how it has hurt their business.
If you’re reading, Trey, good luck against Lexitas and STTI. If you’re able to get to discovery, you may very well uncover the things that I was hoping to uncover through my media publishing strategy and get a nice fat settlement when their lawyers realize they don’t want that stuff to be public. And if they broke the law… why not?
NOTE: Some dismissals are without prejudice, so the complaint could conceivably be amended to allege facts satisfactory to sustain a claim against some of these defendants. I’ll continue to check the case on PACER periodically for documents.
Jackie Mentecky shares error-prone digital court reporter transcript excerptJackie Mentecky shares blank-prone digital court reporter transcript excerpt
I’m pretty sure all this speaks for itself, but I’ll point out that court reporters across the country are doing their part to educate attorneys on the actual status of the field. It’s not just New York, California, Illinois, and Texas. Every state has their leaders and activists, and as more of us stand up and say “this is wrong,” it will become an untenable situation for the organizations that lied to the public about the overall availability of stenographers, such as Veritext, US Legal, and Planet Depos, all of which were represented on the Speech-to-Text Institute board, the vehicle they used to lie to the public and make localized shortages out to be impossible-to-solve national ones. They used a simple trick. Knowing attorneys want stenographers, they told them we were unavailable to get them using digital court reporters.
Leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, an organization that took down its website after being sued by Pascal Perez for anticompetitive acts.Leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, an organization that took down its website after being sued by Pascal Perez for anticompetitive acts.Leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, an organization that took down its website after being sued by Pascal Perez for anticompetitive acts.
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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.
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.
[REDACTED] calls me [REDACTED], 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.
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 MachineThen leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, as preserved by Stenonymous.com and the Wayback MachineThen leadership of the Speech-to-Text Institute, as preserved by Stenonymous.com and the Wayback Machine
I am now uploading the art that’s been used to communicate our position.
I’m starting to think that the reason this hasn’t been picked up by the ALM brands or Law360 is because ALM is big business’s bitch and Law360 is a B2B scam that doesn’t have any interest in actually informing people. Smaller news shops probably figure “eh, the legal news world hasn’t picked this up, so it must be fake.” Nope. Here it is. Christopher Day, court reporter extraordinaire, has been accusing the largest court reporting provider of fraud for years. It’s the industry’s biggest open secret. And it’s only secret because American media is a corporate consolidated hellhole that will readily mislead the public for a dime.
This shit really happens, bro. Same way the media cut the news about the pilot studies in Testifying While Black.
I recently took a look at Pasqual “Trey” Perez III v Speech-to-Text Institute, et al, lawsuit. I would like to share some notes I wrote as I went through the documents. So far, there have been no formal “Answers” in the case, mostly pre-answer motions to dismiss by defendants and, from the Speech-to-Text Institute, a “response to civil action.” I’m providing documents for download here and my typed notes below:
Amended Complaint – Didn’t really see huge changes, but admittedly only glanced through it.
Southwest Reporting Motion to Dismiss – Basically attacks facial sufficiency of the complaint under the Twombly and Iqbal standards for federal pleadings. They’re saying that the complaint does not allege facts that show a that Southwest conspired with anyone else. Paragraph 8 says the only new facts alleged in the amended complaint were in paragraph 16 of that amended complaint. Paragraph 8 goes on to talk a little about COVID and how that drove down demand for videographers.
Motion for Summary Judgment by Alderson Reporting Company – Alderson basically says “we didn’t make the decision to stop using Trey based on his new product.” They also point to COVID as a reason things changed. Alderson explicitly denies it ever discussed its decision to choose a new vendor with any other third party.
An order granting Dennis Holmgren’s motion to appear pro hac vice is included. Dennis Holmgren was the lawyer that helped bring the writ against the government for failing to enforce the law against StoryCloud.
Lexitas (Deposition Solutions, LLC) motion to dismiss – This makes the claim that Trey attempted to market his speech-to-text product to lawyers during depositions where he was hired to provide video recording services. Lexitas makes the claim that plaintiffs were not entitled to provide rough transcription services because they are not CSRs. It also alleges that the facts in the complaint do not support that Lexitas engaged in any kind of collusion. Lexitas likens Trey’s actions to a house painter trying to conduct electrical work they’re not qualified for and dismissal by a general contractor.
Court Reporters Clearinghouse, Kennedy Reporting, Sherry Fisher, Lorrie Schnoor, Sonia Trevino, and Shelly Tucker motion to dismiss – These movants also challenge the facial sufficiency of the complaint. The motion to dismiss makes the claim that the reference to others blackballing Trey does not rise to the level of sustaining a claim against Defendant Tucker. It further goes on to state that movants are within their right to stop doing business with plaintiffs because plaintiffs were violating court reporting laws. Similar to the Lexitas motion, it makes the point that the government sets the bar for entry and that plaintiffs did not meet that bar, therefore there can be no conspiracy to keep them out of the market. It also makes the claim that the non-certified transcript market talked about in the complaint does not exist. This motion also raises the claim that movants are not competitors and therefore cannot be sued under the antitrust laws.
Response to civil action by the Speech-to-Text Institute – Interestingly, the Speech-to-Text Institute doesn’t seem to file a formal motion to dismiss, but it sends a “response to civil action” by someone named Greg Kohn, Executive Manager of the Speech-to-Text Institute, care of Virtual, Inc. The response features affirmative defenses, such as stating that Steve Townsend was never President of the National Court Reporters Association, among other things. What surprised me about this was that they referenced their website. That website likely went down between 5/19/23 when this document was filed with the court and 5/31/23 when the Stenograph Town Hall occurred.
To be honest, it doesn’t really surprise me that they’re hoping to get out of it based on the bare-bones allegations in the complaint. The complaint never makes reference to any of anticompetitive acts I was accusing the corporations behind the Speech-to-Text Institute of, such as pumping the market with false, outdated, or misleading information designed to expand demand for digital court reporting. Actually, reading this response gives me a bit of a theory. They’re hoping to be blanket released from the case with the other defendants and now with their site gone plaintiff will have a harder time proving their false claims because their website has been dusted. To my knowledge, the only way to peruse that website is to pull snippets off Stenonymous or use the Wayback Machine. If Trey manages to get past pleading stages here, I wonder if it’ll come up that they vaporized their website about 10 days after filing a document with the court referring to that very same website.
The Texas Court Reporters Association also filed a motion to dismiss, but I did not have time to review that prior to launching this post. I can only assume it points out the same issues, but if I get around to reading it and learn I am wrong, I’ll amend this post.
Overall: Reading through the defendants’ filings has made me rethink some of what I thought in my original post. It will be interesting to see how many defendants are able to succeed in extricating themselves from the lawsuit before filing an Answer.
Addendum:
The Speech-to-Text Institute’s response will also be hosted here.
