EXPOSÉ: The California Court Reporters Board’s Data Discrepancies and the Push Toward Digital Recording

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Introduction

In recent years, California has faced a well-documented shortage of certified shorthand reporters (CSRs), the professionals responsible for preserving verbatim transcripts of courtroom proceedings. This shortage has prompted a flurry of legislative activity, public concern, and institutional strategy-shifting within the judiciary. However, beneath the surface of these systemic discussions lies an alarming and potentially scandalous detail: the numbers used to justify these strategic shifts may have been based on deeply flawed—and possibly manipulated—data.

This article explores the suspicious discrepancies in court reporter licensing records maintained by the California Court Reporters Board (CRB), the troubling timing of those discrepancies, and how they may have bolstered efforts to replace live reporters with electronic recording (ER) systems. The implications of this are vast, touching on government accountability, transparency, and the future of the court reporting profession.

Discovery of the Discrepancies

While reviewing the publicly available licensing spreadsheet on the CRB website, I noticed something deeply unsettling: many reporters I knew personally, all of whom were actively working in courtrooms across the state, were listed as “inactive.” This wasn’t just a clerical oddity—it was a systemic inconsistency that undermined the reported count of active reporters in California.

Curious and increasingly concerned, I reached out to several of these individuals. Their responses were immediate and incredulous. None of them were aware that their licenses were listed as inactive. All had valid, current licenses and were actively working. Some even showed me their current physical license cards issued by the state.

This wasn’t just a handful of mistaken entries. After more extensive review, it became clear that there were hundreds—if not nearly a thousand—active CSRs misclassified as inactive. This data anomaly wasn’t merely a glitch; it directly contradicted the reality on the ground and cast doubt on the CRB’s official numbers.

Why the Numbers Matter

These inaccuracies may appear technical or bureaucratic at first glance, but their impact reverberates through the entire California judicial system. The official CRB numbers feed into legislative analyses, judicial resource allocation, and the media narrative around court reporter shortages.

Take, for example, the 2022 report prepared for the California Trial Court Consortium: “The Causes, Consequences, and Outlook of the Court Reporter Shortage in California and Beyond.” The report, which drew heavily on CRB-provided data, stated that the number of active CSRs had dropped by nearly 20% over the previous seven years.

One pivotal paragraph stood out:

“Of CRB’s 5,728 active licensees, only 5,043 of them have addresses registered in California… Given the statutory ban on remote reporting, it is safe to assume that these licensees—more than ten percent of the total—are not available to work in California full time.”

This estimate itself is flawed if the active count of 5,728 was artificially deflated. My analysis, corroborated by personal outreach and physical license verification, indicated that there were over 6,500 truly active CSRs at the time—meaning the report was potentially undercounting by nearly 1,000.

This discrepancy is not just numerical; it is political. It paints a bleaker picture of workforce availability, which can be leveraged to support arguments for replacing stenographers with digital recording systems or other alternatives.

Dubious Timing and Legislative Context

The timing of the misclassification is crucial. The data anomaly seemed to emerge around the same period the California Trial Court Consortium was pushing heavily for alternatives to human court reporters. Their 2022 report laid out a dire situation, one exacerbated by what now appears to be artificially low CSR numbers.

Around this same time, legislation concerning voice writing and remote reporting was also in flux. In 2019, Assembly Bill 1520 explicitly prohibited the CRB from licensing voice writers, even though just one week prior, the CRB had announced readiness to administer voice writer certification exams. The abrupt legislative reversal suggests intense political and institutional jockeying.

The 2022 Consortium report also used the shortage to highlight how inflexible and costly it was to rely solely on stenographic reporters:

“This shortage persists despite paying competitive wages, directly inviting and incentivizing court reporters to apply for open positions, and spending increasing time and funds on recruitment.”

If the shortage was partly manufactured by mislabeling active CSRs as inactive, then the foundation of these arguments—and any resulting policy changes—rests on manipulated data.

Data or Deception? System Glitch or Strategic Misstep?

There are two possible explanations for this misclassification: an honest technical error or intentional misrepresentation.

A system glitch might explain how reporters were incorrectly marked as inactive. Licensing databases are complex and often outdated. Errors in syncing renewal dates, processing fees, or manually updating statuses could lead to misreporting.

But intent must be considered given the scale, the consistent pattern of affected individuals, and the suspicious timing. If the CRB knew about the discrepancies—and especially if they failed to correct them after being alerted—it raises the possibility of deliberate obfuscation.

When I informed Mary Pierce, then-president of the Deposition Reporters Association (DRA), about these discrepancies, I received no response. There was no public acknowledgment of the issue from DRA or CRB. Why the silence? If it were a mere glitch, a simple public statement could have cleared the air. But none came.

Consequences for Policy and Profession

Misreporting the number of active CSRs has far-reaching consequences:

  1. Legislative Misguidance: Legislators who rely on flawed CRB numbers may be more inclined to approve policies that shift away from human reporters.
  2. Judicial Resource Allocation: Courts may reduce CSR hiring or fail to fund education initiatives under the false assumption that the profession is unsalvageable.
  3. Public Trust Erosion: If legal transcripts—critical records in the justice system—are being discussed in the context of manipulated data, how can the public trust judicial institutions?
  4. Professional Impact: Misclassified reporters may face professional liability or confusion if their license status is publicly listed as inactive. This can affect their credibility, job prospects, and legal standing.

The Push Toward Electronic Recording

As the alleged shortage narrative gained traction, so too did the movement toward electronic recording systems. The 2022 report framed this shift as inevitable due to the workforce decline:

“Considering California’s aging-out workforce, declining court reporter education system… the number of court reporters in this state consistently trends downward.”

Yet if that narrative was constructed on manipulated or misunderstood data, then the justification for widespread ER deployment begins to crumble.

Moreover, the state has already experimented with ER in limited civil and criminal matters—despite evidence from other states showing its limitations in complex litigation. ER cannot clarify muffled speech, record gestures, or verify speakers the way a live reporter can.

Call for Transparency and Accountability

Given the stakes, the CRB must immediately:

  • Audit all licensing data from 2017–2023 and identify discrepancies.
  • Notify affected licensees and correct public-facing data.
  • Publicly acknowledge any data management issues and provide a timeline for resolution.
  • Release internal communications related to the CRB’s input into the Trial Court Consortium report.

Additionally, the legislature and Judicial Council must investigate whether inaccurate data influenced policy decisions or budget appropriations.

If the CRB deliberately misrepresented the state of the workforce, it constitutes a breach of public trust and a disservice to the very professionals it purports to represent.

Conclusion

California’s court reporting crisis is real, but it may not be as severe—or as unsolvable—as presented. The disturbing possibility that the CRB’s data misrepresentations were used to further an agenda of technological replacement cannot be ignored. Whether through negligence or intent, the effect is the same: a distorted view of reality that influences courts, legislation, and public opinion.

Court reporters are not obsolete. They are essential protectors of the official record and the public’s right to a fair trial. If state institutions are distorting data to phase them out, it is not just a betrayal of professionals—it is a betrayal of justice.

If you’re a court reporter affected by this issue, or a member of the public concerned about courtroom transparency, speak up. Contact your local representatives, the CRB, and professional associations. Demand answers. Demand accuracy. Demand integrity.

Published by stenoimperium

We exist to facilitate the fortifying of the Stenography profession and ensure its survival for the next hundred years! As court reporters, we've handed the relationship role with our customers, or attorneys, over to the agencies and their sales reps.  This has done a lot of damage to our industry.  It has taken away our ability to have those relationships, the ability to be humanized and valued.  We've become a replaceable commodity. Merely saying we are the “Gold Standard” tells them that we’re the best, but there are alternatives.  Who we are though, is much, much more powerful than that!  We are the Responsible Charge.  “Responsible Charge” means responsibility for the direction, control, supervision, and possession of stenographic & transcription work, as the case may be, to assure that the work product has been critically examined and evaluated for compliance with appropriate professional standards by a licensee in the profession, and by sealing and signing the documents, the professional stenographer accepts responsibility for the stenographic or transcription work, respectively, represented by the documents and that applicable stenographic and professional standards have been met.  This designation exists in other professions, such as engineering, land surveying, public water works, landscape architects, land surveyors, fire preventionists, geologists, architects, and more.  In the case of professional engineers, the engineering association adopted a Responsible Charge position statement that says, “A professional engineer is only considered to be in responsible charge of an engineering work if the professional engineer makes independent professional decisions regarding the engineering work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional engineer’s physical presence at the location where the engineering work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the engineering work.” If we were to adopt a Responsible Charge position statement for our industry, we could start with a draft that looks something like this: "A professional court reporter, or stenographer, is only considered to be in responsible charge of court reporting work if the professional court reporter makes independent professional decisions regarding the court reporting work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional court reporter’s physical presence at the location where the court reporting work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the court reporting work.” Shared purpose The cornerstone of a strategic narrative is a shared purpose. This shared purpose is the outcome that you and your customer are working toward together. It’s more than a value proposition of what you deliver to them. Or a mission of what you do for the world. It’s the journey that you are on with them. By having a shared purpose, the relationship shifts from consumer to co-creator. In court reporting, our mission is “to bring justice to every litigant in the U.S.”  That purpose is shared by all involved in the litigation process – judges, attorneys, everyone.  Who we are is the Responsible Charge.  How we do that is by Protecting the Record.

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