Veritext Ignores Fraud Allegations, Goes After Reporter for Facebook Post

Today it was revealed on the Protect Your Record Project Facebook page that someone’s post was screenshotted and given to Veritext. The company then tried to “cause trouble” for one of our fellow reporters.

Partial Statement by Kimberly D’Urso, Protect Your Record Project

Needless to say, the rules of etiquette were reviewed. Sharing posts without permission is not allowed in the group. I got permission to share the basic points of this story and my comment.

Christopher Day (Stenonymous) takes another shot at Veritext, a company accused of perpetuating the court reporter shortage fraud.

I must remark again on the hilarity of Veritext’s silence.

Truth be told, this too is part of my strategy. It is my belief that court reporters are smart. Eventually, even people that haven’t read my work will realize that my fraud allegations hit a home run. They can’t sue because it’s true. They watched the statute of limitations on defamation come and go without a care in the world because they are spineless cowards that couldn’t bear to be confronted with what they do to the women and men of this profession and the lie that they spun to kill the profession itself. When court reporters realize that the STTI Bloc is a direct threat to their income, that NCRA is more or less legally barred from doing anything to stop them, that Christopher Day is ready to fight for them in a way that this profession hasn’t ever seen before, and that the multimillion dollar corporations have to pretend Christopher Day doesn’t exist thanks to the Streisand Effect, there’s a chance they’ll find the funding for Stenonymous. We fund the NCRA to the tune of about $3 million a year. To put that kind of money into perspective, it’s enough for me to retire and spend the rest of my life fighting for working reporters and against corruption in our field. I won’t ask for that. But I will ask those that have not contributed to contribute something using the front page of Stenonymous.com, my PayPal at ChristopherDay227@gmail.com, or my Venmo @Stenonymous.

I don’t just take your money and do nothing with it while waiting for some magic number. I run ad campaigns and have media commissioned. I run a pretty good internet campaign that stretches across many Google searches and social media accounts. But I’m at the point where I’ve spent a considerable amount of my own money to keep things going. I genuinely need some help. If you can’t contribute monetarily, I have been considering the merits of a letter writing campaign. Perhaps some of you would join that when announced, or at the very least encourage others to join that. As I see it, if we want to continue to have this culture and society, if we want the speed contests and camaraderie to continue, we need to get serious about pushing back. We need to push back so hard that not one person in this whole field will even consider corruption and lying to make a buck.

Easiest way to lose a game is to forfeit. We’re a profession that has fought over comma placement. Can’t we join together and fight this?

Tips for Submitting to Stenonymous

It seems like a good time to reveal how I view Stenonymous in our little “ecosystem.” Yes, there’s news, entertainment, commentary, opinion, and creative writing thrown in there. It’s an information relay, bulletin board, and search engine activism machine. I want to use it to help everybody, but it’ll only be as useful as people allow it to be. So here are some pointers for people that want to self-promote or get an article in.

1. Self-promotion is easiest through the Stenonymous Facebook Group or the newly created Stenonymous subreddit. I do not censor self-promotion, I welcome it. I envision a future where associations, nonprofits, and businesses use these spaces to get word out about their events and deals. I feel so strongly about it that I’d probably even let members of the STTI Bloc post to it. If I’m going to parade around as court reporting’s “shock jock” and free speech champion, you bet I’m going to invite others. The only rule I have is please don’t spam my spaces. Once or twice a week, feel free to come in and promote, but if we’re getting blasted with the same thing day after day, people won’t feel informed, they’ll just leave, and I want them to feel informed.

2. Information. A lot of people pass me information or documents. Please let me know if you want them to be shared. Believe it or not, a lot of people pass me stuff they don’t want shared, and I generally honor their request. The only thing I’d say is if you pass me something that strongly supports my fraud claim against STTI Bloc, expect that to be shared. Also, if you email me, let me know if you want the email deleted after our exchange.

3. Stories. When passing me information, if you want a story or an article done on it, tell me. Explain to me the who, what, when, where, why, how. Let me know if you want to be named or anonymous. Give me the information I need to actually write something. If you just pass me something with no or very little explanation / no leads, I’m not going to write about it, because let’s face it, I have a full-time job and I just don’t have the time to chase shadows of stories. I apologize for the times when people DO give me adequate information and I still can’t come up with something, but I have an answer for that too.

4. Self-publishing. I can actually connect people as contributors to this blog. All I need is an email address. If I connect you as a contributor, you could write your own story and I can publish it on Stenonymous. My only real rule is it has to be something related to court reporting in some way, even if it’s an abstract concept or a new perspective. I welcome opinions contrary to mine. If I’m dragging my feet on something you deem very important, why not help me get it out there? The rule I’ll put on this is try to make whatever it is worth reading or of value. Just remember there are subscribers to the blog and they don’t want garbage in their inboxes.

That’s it. Through information dispersal, I feel we become a stronger community. We will have our disagreements, our personality conflicts, and the problems that come along with a free-information ethos, but human intelligence is on a bell curve, which means we’re all pretty close in intelligence and that given the same information, many of us will come to the same conclusions, hopefully the correct conclusions, whatever they may be.

I’m easy to reach. Just fill out the message box on the front page of Stenonymous.com or write to Chris@stenonymous.com.

A Puppet Explains Stenonymous and Court Reporting. Seriously!?

More court reporting content for the masses. With more support from stenographers like you, we’ll be moving onto bigger and better things. But if this is entertaining for you, consider dropping me a dollar using the front page of Stenonymous.com.

According to available statistics, court reporters pull in at least $1.2 billion a year across the industry. A fraction of that would supercharge my content creation. With more support I’ll be able to figuratively grind the STTI Bloc into paste. If you ever get tired of playing defense, consider cutting me loose and watching me work.

Inside Stenonymous’s Strategy

My behavior, to some, may come off as strange. I started the digital court reporter helpline on Facebook. Some people, even my own readers, take issue with the fact that I refer to them as reporters. I’d like to level with people, I know that what I do is different from mainstream stenography. There are ideas and strategies behind many things that I do. I’d like to share some so that people can understand and make their own judgments. I’ll also memorialize some steno history as I see it.

First, on the issue of shortage, I envision possibilities and then document events until I know a probable truth. For example, certainly at the start of my journey, I wrote about shortage and I viewed the shortage as our main problem. As I started to see the Speech-to-Text Institute inundate our side of the field with claims that the shortage was impossible to solve, this belief was replaced, I came to believe that STTI was simply digital court reporter marketing, and that by emphasizing the shortage, they were trying to fool reporters into going digital, fool agencies into using digital, and ultimately fool our associations into embracing the “new” court reporting. It’s called framing. How you frame an issue dramatically changes the response you get. If they framed the shortage as insurmountable, we would come to the conclusion they wanted: You must go digital. To wrap up my thoughts here, I formed two possibilities in my mind. 1) The shortage is impossible to solve. 2) The shortage is possible to solve.

Eventually, after much documentation and research of their claims, I concluded 2 was most likely. I’ll spare everybody the explanation. But that’s where I jumped into a number of activities, writing about digital reporting, the pitfalls, the deception of jobseekers. Here’s the strategy part: This all creates a record. It populates searches with Stenonymous blog posts. It begins to shape digital court reporting’s online presence and frames the issue in the way STTI was doing to all of you. So when people look up digital, they might see it’s a kind of “soft scam” and go elsewhere. This makes the economic cost of filling digital positions higher, and therefore disincentivizes digital use in businesses. Even now, search engines may start pairing digital court reporter with scam just because I wrote them together. So for those of you that want me to call them recorders, this is why I won’t. The people in power now have to live with the toxic title they stole from us.

I also scare off people that have an agenda, but no conviction. I was connected with Jim Cudahy (then STTI), on LinkedIn for a short time. At that time a lot of shortage media was going out, and I realized the man had a connection with an association for journalists. While I can’t prove it, I believe at least some shortage articles were engineered because I have been trying to get an article run on corporate fraud for over a year (on and off) with little success. Why in the world is every journalist DYING to talk about the end of stenographers, a field for which they previously had no interest? It might be big business interfering in our industry media. One analyst, Victoria Hudgins, ignored me when I wrote to her with corrections and kept publishing stuff that put stenographers in a negative light. I finally ran an attack ad on her, and we haven’t heard from her since. I called Jim Cudahy a fraud and he ran away to the Alliance of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Societies. Now I’ve been watching Steven Lerner’s articles at Law360. He’s a senior reporter at Law360. I feel his articles put too much emphasis on calling things equal, mostly because the idiot called STTI a stenography association, and he has outright ignored many things I’ve sent him. So quite frankly he may be next. Say what you want about me. In medieval warfare getting the enemy to rout was a win. At the point where its enemies flee, the stenographic legion is winning.

There is also a strategy to being solo. I’m a bit of a loner and you can’t really ostracize a loner. I separated from my volunteer roles in associations. This has many benefits as far as lawsuits against me for my publishing. A potential plaintiff would have to target me as an individual. The amount they could collect is limited because I just don’t have very much. The economic cost of a lawsuit would also be phenomenal for a plaintiff. Imagine for a moment the 400 or so blog posts I’ve made over the years becoming exhibits, the depositions, the interrogatories, the emails, the trial! This is on top of the fact that a lawsuit against me would not be meritorious, and therefore plaintiff would risk losing against a pro se stenographer.

I tried contacting law enforcement, but I don’t have any details on where those reports go. This leaves us in a kind of twilight where we need the media to cover this and ask the hard questions, like “hey, multimillion dollar corporation Veritext, why would you let a respected member of the profession say these things about you without trying to convince him he’s wrong?” Remember, they don’t have to sue, they just have to convince me I’m wrong. They haven’t tried. Because it’s a fraud. I even wrote them a letter. We also need the media to ask government questions, because that would probably get government to act. Until it does, we are a nation of unenforced laws.

Again, possibilities. 1) An event will occur which triggers a viral moment, calling attention to us in a way that changes the trajectory of digital recruitment and definitively ends shortage, such as attracting investors. 2) Such an event will not occur. So what is digital court reporter helpline? An assumption that I will lose. I will assume that court reporters will not increase their funding of Stenonymous over the next decade, that no journalist or lawyer will come to our rescue in a way that makes a difference, and that the number of stenographers falls to the point where we won’t bounce back (unlikely). So then the goal, for me, at least, becomes improving the lives and working conditions of working reporters. That means organizing people. That means communicating with them. That means thinking well outside the box. And if you see the description for the helpline, you’ll see what I mean. Again, as I grow this movement, it will hopefully decrease the steno-digital pay gap, leading to incentivized stenographer use because we are more efficient on average. And if the corporations decide to discontinue their aggressive pursuit of digital before we have a viral moment, so be it. But that’s what the helpline is about, taking control of digital court reporter spaces in a way that associations could never do.

But until I’m fairly sure I’ve lost, I’ll be trying to reach that viral moment. I’ve done this in a lot of different ways, even some ways people wouldn’t think about, like being a little more rude or aggressive. This is because journalists are lazy and about ten thousand times more likely to publish an article about me saying something a little off key than the math showing shortage is exaggerated. Seriously, somebody lie and tell a journalist I made a racial slur and I’ll be in the news tomorrow. But corporate fraud affecting thousands of people isn’t important. In that same vein, I was hoping someone would start media antithetical to mine and start an ideology war with me. Power’s about eyeballs, and nothing would get eyeballs like an open market media war. The most I got was Mary Ann Payonk blocking me and badmouthing me to others.

You see, for years court reporters predictably went in the same direction and were stuck in a kind of “group think.” By injecting the market with a new and growing viewpoint, we create an environment that is uncertain. In a “certain” environment, status quo reigns supreme, and right now the aggressive expansion of digital is the status quo. In an uncertain environment, the largest players have the most to lose and are the slowest to act. By taking our predictability off the table, we can force the largest players on the field to react to us. If your opponent is reacting to you, it means you have a shot at controlling the game.

Some miscellaneous points. As for why I allow uncomfortable conversations in the Stenonymous Facebook group, my business is information. It’s a cop tactic. Let the suspect talk themselves into a corner. Let the people that make us uncomfortable speak, we might learn something or we might not, but we certainly will not if we silence dissent. And learning new information can only help us because we are the more-established workforce.

Before I conclude, I would just like to say I’m imperfect. My execution of things isn’t always great. So I am open to criticism. I don’t discard it when you send it. I do not censor contrary viewpoints. That’s why I’m writing this. Being open minded is also part of my strategy. Evidence will change my views, particularly over time and with reflection. Building truth seeking into my worldview allows me to re-evaluate things and avoid confirmation bias trapping me in an endless loop of “I’m right and you’re wrong.”

I guess the bottom line is my life as a court reporter has taught me that a lot of “bad people” go through life with a simple moral code. “Screw you, stop me.” I’m experimenting with what happens when a “good person” has had enough and takes on the same moral code. What happens when a “good person” is willing to be the “bad guy?”

Stenonymous.

2022 Year End Report and Looking Forward

Happy New Year everyone! I wanted to provide a statistics update for the blog and some thoughts looking forward.

In 2022 there were 27,671 visitors and 48,649 views. This is a drop from 2021’s 51,423 visitors and 85,117 views. It is, however, still a massive upgrade from 2020, which saw 9,526 visitors and 15,158 views. This is in the context of a field estimated to be about 30,000 members. This was expected because funding for the blog was not as high this year and the advertising I could run for steno or consumer awareness was limited.

Stenonymous.com 2022 statistics showing about 27,000 visitors in 2022. — Stenonymous.com 2022 visitor stats.

Due to the drop in funding, I’ve been forced to find low-cost ways to spread the message and get attention on our issues.

Christopher Day standing with a Stenonymous.com QR code on a wearable sandwich board. — Christopher Day attracting attention to the stenographic legion and Stenonymous Q4 2022. Times Square.

I even enlisted the help of a cheering crowd. They know what stenographers need, international support. They told us to never give up.

Just kidding. While I was out there promoting Stenonymous, their protest was about the Burmese people, and while I don’t mean to co-opt their movement, I did want to make a point about the importance of my work as an independent body. Everybody has an angle. Big boxes want you working for them cheaply, manufacturers want to sell you stuff, I want people reading my work. The difference between me and a lot of other “influencers” is that my angle is not purely monetary. There is a social and political component to what I do. With your continued support, either through passing me information or monetarily, this movement to defend the interests of working reporters can only grow to have real teeth.

There are indications change is coming. Some of my sources have reported New York City copy sales as high as $1.00 per page and originals upwards of $4.30 per page. This is contrasted against the situation as it was in 2010 and many years thereafter, $0.25 copies and originals as low as $2.80. What’s happened in the last 5 years to make prices quadruple? Documentation and broadcasting of how bad New York freelance reporters are getting screwed. The documentation of events in our field has a value, but media growth will have more value. If we can get it in front of every law practitioner how easy it is to edit audio, they might be less inclined to charge into digital. If we can get it in front of jobseekers that digital court reporting doesn’t have the same career options as steno, they may find their way to steno or another career that treats them better. If we can continue to gather and release data that helps players in the market make informed decisions, it may reinvigorate an industry that some feel is in decline. If we can communicate to the public that the integrity of the appeal system is contingent on the accuracy of these records, we can get more people behind our cause.

Again, have a happy and healthy new year. I’ll be doing what I can to make this one count.

Christopher Day looking forward to the future of Stenonymous

Stenonymous Becomes StenoKeyboards Affiliate

You can now purchase StenoKeyboards products through my affiliate link. If you do, send me a picture with your product(s), a receipt, and your preferred rebate method, and I will give you 2% of your sale price back by PayPal, Zelle, or Venmo. This rebate is being offered by me as an incentive to use my affiliate link and is not backed by StenoKeyboards.

Contact@Stenonymous.com

*Offer is only good for as long as my affiliate link is active.

Response to Times Bulletin Bullying Accusations

*A major update occurred within an hour of writing this post. See the addendum at the bottom. The Times Bulletin and/or Apsters Technologies chose to take down the post. I am very grateful to those organizations for their dedication to honesty.

My media work is interesting. I get lots of support. With that support comes the occasional message about how I’m ineffective or not changing anything. Today, I can show my audience just how effective I really am. On my post about how US Legal and Veritext lied about the shortage, it got loaded up with troll comments. Then last night while I was slumbering peacefully and/or coughing up my lungs, there was a pingback to the article “Is Christopher Day, AKA Stenonymous, Bullying Others In His Articles?”

I’ll just be upfront about it. In pockets of December and possibly November I was being a bully. That’s thanks to the mental illness I later found out about and addressed. I’m all better now.

Tellingly, the post doesn’t point to any of that behavior. It points to my very real and serious accusation that US Legal and Veritext are lying to the public and whines that that’s bullying. It claims “some have said that” I’ve crossed the line, but it gives no good example of where or when that line was crossed. The best crack they can take at it is that I made a post about US Legal and Veritext and insinuate the information I provide is inaccurate despite providing no evidence of inaccuracy.

The article also pokes at my claim that Brad Patterson and other commentators on the post in question were foreign troll operatives. Hilariously, the site itself is in India.

Apsters Technologies is awesome. See the addendum.

The author, “Derek Robins,” is a faceless entity I can’t contact or even look up as far as I can see.

I’m so effective that it appears a bona fide disinformation campaign has been started against me. I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t funded or written better. I’m also a little insulted that they think my audience is full of unsophisticated rubes that’ll fall for that. But I am flattered to be the subject of such a campaign.

As always, I have attempted to mediate the situation Christopher Day style.

Addendum:

Apsters Technologies and the Times Bulletin appear to be legitimate. The author was likely the one who was bribed to write about me. I received the following response:

I am deeply moved by their compassion. Thank you so much Arun Patil.

Stenonymous Receives Demand for Correction & Apology from Naegeli

Last night at about 10:00 p.m., I received an e-mail from Richard Hunt of Barran Liebman LLP about Naegeli. It was a fairly standard legal threat, not that I know what those look like, since I’ve never received one before. If you’re short on time, skip their nonsense and read my reply.

The demand letter is available for download here:

Richard Hunt Letter to Stenonymous Download

Now, I understand that this kind of thing may have a chilling effect on the free speech I have worked so hard to promote in our industry. I must ask all of you not to be afraid, but to turn to your state and federal legislators and law enforcement. Take this opportunity to share with them what is happening. I will lead by example in defense of our collective futures. I will be brave as I am asking all of you to be.

The PDF download and plain text is below.

Letter to Richard Hunt from Christopher Day Download

Dear Mr. Hunt:

I’ll assume you’re an honest lawyer roped into this circus by your corporate client. Welcome. Make sure you’re sitting for this one.

This is my show. Defamation is a false statement of fact published to a third party that causes damage. Naegeli’s reputation is so awful that I find it hard to believe there’s anything that could be said that would damage its reputation further. Some of the statements I make are factual, and truth is an affirmative defense to defamation. Beyond that, some of the statements I make are an opinion based on my expertise as a stenographic court reporter for the last 11 and a half years and creator of what is indisputably the largest blog in my industry. You do not have a cause of action and therefore it would be legally wrong for you to file a complaint against me.

You should peruse my blog. I’ve been reporting corporate corruption against much larger corporations than Naegeli. Veritext and US Legal Support appear to be involved in a plot to rig the court reporting and stenotype services industry against consumers/lawyers. What was done to the healthcare industry as portrayed in the series Dopesick about Purdue Pharma is more or less being done to my industry. The difference here is that what is occurring in my industry is what would have happened if one doctor rallied the others to fight the misleading advertising and dishonest behavior. Conceded that the series is a dramatization of the actual events, of course. I have a moral obligation to stop the lies and dishonesty rampant in my field because of the damage this plot will likely do to my profession, its students, minority speakers, and testimony transcript accuracy. Once the public takes note and begins alerting the DOJ, FBI, and FTC as I have, there is virtually no chance the plot will continue. Naegeli’s gouging was such a minor and unrelated part of that, that in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined this kind of foolish overreaction and strategic blunder. Thank you.

My field is beset by silence and fear. I aim to break this. To achieve this I have become a goal-oriented person. You see, now that Naegeli has threatened to sue through an actual law firm, it’s put itself in a much worse position than anyone could have conceived. Now Naegeli has two choices. It can fail to sue me, and show an entire field of nearly 30,000 court reporters that it is a scared barking dog, which will embolden them. The competition from all of them will become so fierce that it will run the company into the ground. Alternatively, Naegeli could sue. I am quite sure that I can find a valid counterclaim. We can lock each other in for a lawsuit and give this field the show it never knew it needed. It will be the single-largest destruction of capital the industry has ever seen and your client’s reputation will drop even more as court reporters across the nation realize that money could’ve gone into advertising to fix the stenographer shortage. Imagine the backlash. “Yes, I could’ve spent $400 an hour advertising this profession but instead I, Naegeli & Co., have decided the money is better spent stifling Christopher Day’s free speech.”

I know the latter seems like an attractive choice, but it will only expand my audience exponentially and possibly allow me to run daily ads decrying Naegeli’s hatred of free speech and the stenographic free press. I took a personality test recently, and it claimed I was a mediator. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have come up with a third option. I can use my media personality to completely rehabilitate Naegeli’s reputation. We can sign a contract that Naegeli will use only stenographers and/or voice writers, and will shift their billing model to be the more open and honest “split of invoice” method. I’ll take $100,000 for up to two dozen press releases or media actions in 2022. Together, we will find a way to repair Naegeli’s image in the eyes of the public and court reporters across the nation. We can donate 5% of the contract to NCRF and 5% of the contract to Open Steno to show the field our resolve and unity.

I have about $1,200 to my name and am about $20,000 in debt. You see, the corporations in my field looted it so much by the time I got here that as a young man, I simply didn’t have a fair shot. I let you know that in order to explain that in the event you sue and somehow manage to bribe a judge and/or jury to see things your way, you will have succeeded in little more than obtaining a piece of paper called a judgment that says “you win, congrats.” Meanwhile, the work I am doing will ensure that not a single stenography grad ever has to suffer like that again. If you believe there is any universe where I will back down, there is an ancient stenographic proverb designed just for you.

TKPWHRUBG.

BlueLedge Connected with Veritext and Stenograph

BlueLedge is the digital reporting training company that apparently dissolved two years ago in Florida that I suspect is behind CourtReporterEDU. BlueLedge, as far as I can tell, continued to operate after its voluntary dissolution in 2019, because in August 2020, it entered a strategic partnership with Ed 2 Go.

Many reporters reached out to let me know that Veritext used or uses BlueLedge, but I didn’t have time to look into it. Finally, someone sent me the Google search. Step A, if you want to complete Veritext’s digital court reporter partner program, is to register with and complete the BlueLedge program.

This, by itself, isn’t much of a problem. But it strengthens the argument that the court reporting shortage is being exaggerated and exacerbated by Veritext. If the company was genuinely interested in recruiting stenographers, it might have constructed such a detailed pipeline for the education of stenographers. Instead, the company routinely tells stenographers what they want to hear and pours its resources into expanding its digital business despite the potential harm to minority speakers. One reporter brought up to me that Veritext has some involvement with a school in Maryland. I have even reported on its scholarship activities. I’m happy about those pro-steno activities. But at a time when 50% of our field, according to Ducker, is in California, Texas, Illinois, and New York, and while Veritext is working with BlueLedge, a company that has hooked its claws into national recruitment using Ed 2 Go, it remains clear where Veritext’s priorities are — expanding digital recruitment not as a supplement to our shortage, but at the direct expense of stenographic court reporters.

Telling consumers/attorneys that no stenographer is available while taking steps to alienate practicing reporters and undermining our industry’s intense recruitment efforts is just wrong. It’s like Burger King lighting cattle fields on fire and yelling about a beef patty shortage. The only difference is we would all immediately identify the arson as criminal, whereas here, if you hide the dishonest, anticompetitive, and potentially criminal behavior behind layers of dissolved companies and corporate paperwork, you get people defending the bad behavior. What would we do without Veritext? Probably be a lot better off!

Less importantly, Stenograph was getting cozy with BlueLedge as early as August 2021.

So let me add that to Stenograph’s PR problem. We need to boycott the company until it sells for stenography and voice writing only. We want no more expansion of digital court reporting. Keep hard on that line and it will happen. Consider Stenograph an arms dealer. It thinks it will sit there and sell to both sides. Except, in this very particular case, our field of stenographers has far more customers and most of our money is earned as opposed to being “borrowed” from investors. We are in a much stronger position financially even if we believe digital reporting has more actual dollars down on it. A lot of people in our field became CaseCAT trainers. They’re killing your industry and income to build digital. I want to grow stenography so you have more business. So even the CaseCAT trainers have a reason to stand up in defiance here, let alone the rest of us.

Succinctly, the money being sunk into digital reporting is money that investors will be expecting back. When it does not make the returns promised, and we have good reason to suspect it won’t because of companies like VIQ Solutions giving us a window into digital reporting financials ($10 million in losses June 2021), the faucet will turn off. All the companies relying on investor cash flow instead of company profit will start to decline. It is in our best interest as a profession to take the power of our good money away from it. The digital money will dry up on its own. If Stenograph is smart, it will cave to our demands. If it is not smart, we can crowdfund, buy it when it goes bankrupt, and put its employees back to work for us like I’m sure many of them want to be. We can even divvy up what Dutta’s salary would’ve been and give them a raise.

Stenograph, at this point, is relying on our nostalgia of it being “our company” and assuming we will not turn our backs on it. I’ve got some nostalgia of my own. There’s a scene in the original StarCraft that sums up my feelings well. Acting predictably is our enemy. We predictably divide and conquer ourselves time and again. Stand together on this one and watch things roll our way. It’s really that simple.

“An illusion? Are you afraid to face me, Templar?”

“So long as you continue to be so predictable, O Queen, I need not face you at all. You are your own worst enemy.”

This continues to be a profound moment in our field where we must choose between loyalty to each other and loyalty to companies whispering “trust us, trust us” while they systematically work to reduce our numbers and undermine our judicial system for profit. Not the hardest decision in history.

US Legal Support Switches to Ultimate Staffing in Its Bid to Betray Industry

US Legal, in furtherance of its scheme to inflate the shortage numbers, overcharge consumers, and cover up its questionable practices, has apparently moved its LinkedIn recruitment to a company called Ultimate Staffing despite concerns that digital court reporting will hurt minority speakers.

Stenographers across the country should be feeling confident. It’s time to ask for a raise. We were barraged by false claims that the shortage could not be solved. It has been about two months since I first pointed out there was an honesty problem with the company. The company’s response to the social pressure? Run, hide, and hope no law enforcement comes knocking. Prior to my allegations, Rick Levy from US Legal spent a good amount of time trying to convince reporters that the company was on our side.

Image originally posted 9/9/21, Stenonymous.com

What is he doing these days? Pretending that I don’t exist. That’s a perfectly normal thing to do when someone is accusing your outfit of fraud. Right?

It is not my actions alone that are making the difference, but the actions of court reporters across the country. It is all of you educating each other and sharing my posts. It is all of you continuing to supply me with information and monitoring questionable behavior in our industry. It is all of you sending donations so that we can spread word of what’s happening in our field. It is all of you that have filed complaints where appropriate. It is all of you that are bringing my research to attorneys. We are collectively making a difference just like I said we could.

As of today about $6,751 has been spent. Over 260,000 impressions have been made. About $2,800 from donations must still be allocated. Seeing how we are changing the course of a $3 billion industry with less than $10,000, I must ask my colleagues that have not donated to consider doing so. Financial security for me would only free up my time to fight for your financial security and the future of working reporters across the country. In two months you have seen the shortage go from impossible to solve to an expansion of the USL partnership with Project Steno. Trust that every single dollar will make a tremendous impact and that I will not stop until every last one of you has the respect you were robbed of these last two decades.

To my friends in US Legal Support leadership, you can still start recruiting stenographers and paying them fairly. If you do not, you risk 30,000 court reporters making me a millionaire and a full-time advocate. Abuse thrived in silence and now yours has told us all that we will ever need to know about you.