Court Reporters are Killing Each Other

Did you know that if you put 100 black ants and 100 red ants in a jar, nothing will happen? But if you shake the jar hard, the ants start killing each other. The red ants consider the black ants their enemies, and the black ants consider the red ants their enemies. The true enemy is the one shaking the jar. The same thing happens in human society. So, before we attack each other, we should think about who is shaking the jar!

Credit: Kurt Vonnegut

The hands around the jar are multitudinous, but include the big boxes that are going digital, the attorneys who steal our transcripts, judges who choose ER and are ousting officials, long-time steno allies cannibalizing steno products for digital products, insurance companies who are commoditizing stenos, and the list goes on. But incoming NCRA President, Keith Lemons, stepped on an ant hill when he disbanded the NCRA Strong Committee.

An anonymous blog by the name of WUNCRA is circulating a petition which “seeks the voluntary resignation of incoming president Keith Lemons for choosing to disband NCRA Strong at a time when additional advocacy is needed, not less.”

Keith Lemons’ prickly demeanor is not sitting well with the 95% female population of court reporters who want answers. He has a reputation for having a typical modus operandi that will quash and block any opinion that he disagrees with. See for yourself one of his exchanges, where he’s seen minimizing the disbanding of the Strong Committee as simply “morphing” into another committee called the Government Relations Team (GRT) .

I was surprised to learn that Keith Lemons is not even a working court reporter.

What’s interesting is when you go to the NCRA’s “Meet the Team” page, it doesn’t even list the President, who is a court reporter and is elected by the members every year. You have to go to the “Leadership” and then “Board of Directors” page, kind of buried.

Keith is a retired freelancer, former firm owner, and former official reporter. Apparently, he’s qualified, although not currently a reporter. Retired reporters are eligible to serve as a President of the NCRA. “Once a reporter, always a reporter” is what I always say.

I guess if you don’t like Keith as a candidate for the Presidency, you have the nominating committee to blame; right? But who were the members of the Nominating Committee that nominated Keith Lemons? In a cursory search for the answer to that question, I found this list. This is just a screenshot of the Nominating Committee list that was pulled directly from the NCRA’s website today (7/24/2024), but I’m being informed by readers who are coming forward with information that this is not the Nominating Committee who were privy to discussions about, nor did they nominate Keith Lemons:

These are NOT the Nomination Committee members who voted for Keith Lemons. I’ve had two members come forward to provide information that this list of committee members were never informed of Keith’s nomination and never discussed it. See the “Addendum” below for more information.

The duties of a President of the NCRA includes verbs such as presides, liaises, appoints, chairs, informs, consults, collaborates, communicates, cooperates, develops, delegates, ensures, and serves. It appears, though, from the job description, that he cannot arbitrarily disband a committee and appoint a new one without the approval of the board. Did the board vote for the Steno Strong committee to be disbanded? When? Who voted yay on that?

What can we do? What recourse do we have if we perceive foul play? File a complaint!

Who did Keith Lemons piss off when he disbanded the Strong committee? These ladies, for beginners. The list reads like the Who’s Who of the court reporting world. Not any of which I would want to make enemies with.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!” ~ Shakespeare

Interesting fact: The notorious Christopher Day, the Stenonymous blogger, was also on the Strong Committee at one point in time. (By the way, Christopher Day has absolutely NOTHING to do with the StenoImperium blog. Please don’t get the two blogs confused.)

ADDENDUM:

As an addendum, I am going to include a screenshot of a comment from two readers who commented on the Nominating Committee that I shared from the NCRA website:

The list of committee members was copied and pasted from the NCRA website this morning. I don’t know who the prior year NomCom is for 2023-2024 who would have selected Keith Lemons. So I was NOT incorrect that it is the Nominating Committee who is supposed to make the recommendation of the next president-elect for the NCRA, but I was incorrect that it is the “CURRENT” NomCom, on which Kimberly Farkas serves. It is the immediate past NomCom, whose members are unknown to us, that nominated Keith Lemons. It’s helpful to know that there is a contest period of 60 days. When does the 60-day clock begin to run?

The information about the NomCom on the NCRA website is light. It doesn’t give the information that Kimberly articulated above. This is all there is, and when you click “Learn More,” you get a list of the nominating committee names, which I’ve shared the screenshot above.

So to clarify, there will not be a vote for the incoming president at the upcoming NCRA convention. Keith Lemons is already locked in as the President-elect. So it goes back to my other suggestion, that if members choose, they can complain about violation of the policies and proceedures or bylaws, if you find that any violation occurred. Or you can continue with the WUNCRA petition to seek to get his attention and ask him to voluntarily resign. But I would hope that there be a plan in place for an immediate and competent replacement.

Here is the second comment from a reader who appears on that list and has provided information that as a NomCom member on this list, he was NOT privy to discussing nor voting for President-Elect Keith Lemons.

It pains me to see the backstabbing of court reporting professionals in our industry. Having been personally affected by a disgusting mob several months ago, I’m painfully familiar with the sting of having a target on my back. It seems that once a reporter steps up to volunteer in our profession or to blow a whistle on unethical behavior or actions or business practices, the target on their back emerges, and the gossip and gangstalking begin. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a 96% female industry, and women fight using below-the-belt tactics, such as gossip, which destroys reputations and is impossible to address the accuser and defend, but I haven’t seen the whisper assaults in the other male-dominated industries I’ve worked in. I’ve seen really competent and professional and capable leaders make the choice to step down, step away, and end their volunteer service to our court reporting profession after being emotionally abused and attacked by their peers in THIS profession.

I have to ask: Is there another responsible way of handling the malcontent? Can we give Keith a chance? Have the Strong Committee members asked to serve on the new committee? I’ve urged Keith, personally, to be as forthcoming as possible with communicating his plans to the steno world and not wait for his “timing.” I expressed that I believed it was a mistake to let the malconent boil over. I was blocked. Can others reach out to him and urge him to communicate his plans and not leave our community in the dark? Can we get him to the so-called “table” to discuss his plans for the future committee? Keith has an impressive 40 years of experience and service to this industry. We owe him more than a petition asking him to resign. We do deserve answers though too. There are two sides, with two sets of expectations, and we need to get to the bottom of each and come up with a solution that works for our profession. Further dividing the profession at a time like this is not wise. I see that there is an obvious breakdown in communication, but we must be persuasive and persistent in our efforts to lead the resolution efforts.

I urge you to put down your swords and rocks, cast aside your opinions, refrain from gossip, follow the processes and proceedures the organization has laid out in civilized, professional societies to resolve disputes in an orderly and public manner using the complaint form so the organization can address complaints publicly, and not in secret in the dark. Give it time.

As more comments flow in, I will post them and address them. Here is an email from the NCRA with the correct link. Click on the picture and it will take you to the link. I received the response from the NCRA within 3 hours of my request – an impressive response time.

So here is the information I was looking for, the nomination committee and slate of officers for 2023-2024. NCRA did communicate this to all members through their web platform in a timely manner, with all the information one could want – who, what, when, where, how, deadlines, links, etc. All out in the open – total transparency.

We have to really read between the lines to get the full story here. It says the NomCom “announces” the slate and includes “nominations.” That’s the same template language they’ve used in past releases. But there’s one word missing from the announcement when Keith Lemons nomination to President-Elect was announced – “pleased.” That’s a huge distinction. Could it be that the behind-the-scenes political discord is rearing its ugly head in their public announcement with the omission of that one little adjective which changes the meaning completely and gives us some insight? Does is give us a clue?

Here’s another comment from a reader, Allison Lewis Kimmel:

I would say to Allison Lewis Kimmel, in response to her comment, that I am not “slinging mud” at any of the nominating committee members. I, personally do not taken a position on the WUNCRA petition and am not a member of it. I just found out about it yesterday. I’m just posting their petition, which I have not signed. I think that posting a screen shot of the NCRA’s website with the Nominating Committee is not mudslinging. Making a suggestion that the WUNCRA committee find a better resolution than circulating a petition to get him to voluntarily resign, which will most likely not happen, is not mudslinging. I’m about getting results, and I’m focusing on that. If you want to effectuate change, you have to do it through the proper channels. It seems like finding out the nominating process would be a good start and finding out who voted him in and get answers from them, if WUNCRA takes issue with Keith being the next president. But the Strong Committee members are upset and WUNCRA is upset. I am not, as I’m in the dark about all the politics that this matter has dredged up, and I don’t know what happened. I received the petition, and I want to know what’s happening. I’m making an observation that as times get tougher in our profession, the infighting seems to be getting more heated.

I’m a busy working reporter. I’m a blogger. I’m not an investigative journalist. I’m not a professional journalist. I’m not paid to write and investigate facts. I take things I see and write about it, on a blog. If you want facts, go to a legitimate news source. A blog, my blog, is not a news source. This is an opinion, op-ed, blog. I find out about things going on in our profession and then go on a journey to find out more about it and share what I’m learning along the way. You can come with me and see what I find out, see what others are sharing with me about it, see how I’m synthesizing the information to formulate possible avenues to solve problems, and enjoy the discussion and thought-provoking questions along the way. You can tell me I’m wrong, I’m stupid, you disagree, you would have done it differently – and you’re probably right. Or maybe you’ll have an ah-ha! moment and go write a Facebook post about it.

BREAKING INFO

This gets more interesting as the inside information develops and fills in the big gaping holes from the bystander bleachers I seem to find myself in on this issue, watching it unfold along with the general audience in our small community. It seems that even the 2023-2024 Nominating Committee didn’t nominate Keith Lemons to President-Elect. See what my inside source had to say:

Turns out that little adjective was insightful. There WAS a lot of drama behind the scenes over the whole thing. But lips of the committee members are tightly sealed.

With the NCRA Convention approaching rapidly, 6 days from now, maybe you’ll consider getting there early to attend the business meeting, because it’s sure to be a hoot. You might be able to glean a lot more about this all from being there in person rather than behind your phone or keyboard reading a blog.

What can you do if you don’t like the leadership or the direction our organization is going? Get involved. Volunteer. Be a part of the change. Be the change you wish to see in our world!

FYI: