Parasites with Power – How Toxic Management is Destroying Court Reporting in Superior Courts

Posted bystenoimperiumPosted inAI and the Legal System, Court Reporting, Judicial Ethics Watch, Legal ServicesTags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In a toxic culture, the strong don’t survive; the corrupt do.

That’s the reality for too many official court reporters and pro tem officials working inside superior courts today. Far from being protected as essential officers of the record, reporters are routinely abused, demeaned, and manipulated by those placed in charge of “court reporter services.” These toxic managers—whether coordinators, clerks, or administrators—hold titles that suggest leadership but practice something far different.

Toxic bosses shouldn’t be called leaders. Leadership uplifts. Leadership protects. Leadership ensures the integrity of the court and the well-being of its officers. But what we see instead in courtroom hallways and administrative offices is a culture where unethical behavior is tolerated, expected, and even rewarded.

These individuals aren’t leaders. They are parasites with power.

The Ten Faces of Toxicity

Reporters know them well. They’re the people whose names trigger stress before an assignment even begins. Here’s what these so-called leaders really deserve to be called:

  1. The bully who called it leadership – weaponizing authority to silence and demean.
  2. The thief who stole credit and dodged blame – taking ownership of every success, deflecting every failure.
  3. The coward who led with fear – relying on intimidation to maintain compliance.
  4. The faker who preached teamwork but played favorites – rewarding loyalty over merit.
  5. The ego who cared more about image than well-being – obsessed with status, blind to burnout.
  6. The gaslighter who made us doubt our own reality – rewriting history to make victims feel complicit.
  7. The micromanager who strangled creativity – suffocating initiative with needless control.
  8. The ghost who was never around when support was needed – absent in crisis, present only for credit.
  9. The hypocrite who demanded loyalty but gave none back – betraying the very people they exploited.
  10. The destroyer who left people burned out, broken, and replaceable – ensuring the system loses talent faster than it can recruit.

In short, these are not anomalies; they are archetypes of toxicity.

Why Reporters Are Especially Vulnerable

The stakes are higher in court reporting because the work is not just a job—it’s the creation of the official legal record. Reporters are sworn officers, responsible for accuracy, neutrality, and integrity. Yet in many superior courts, these values are compromised the moment a reporter interacts with management.

  • Reporters are pressured to cover more courtrooms than is physically possible.
  • They’re assigned to high-volume calendars without relief or backup.
  • They’re threatened with reassignment or retaliation if they complain.
  • Their statutory pay and transcript rights are undermined by backdoor “administrative policies.”

Unlike other professions, court reporters can’t simply “cut corners” to survive. Every transcript, every word, every pause matters. Toxic managers know this—and exploit it.

Psychology of Toxic Workplaces

The broader research on toxic workplace cultures, like that published in Psychology of Workplaces on Medium, offers a chilling mirror of what court reporters endure daily.

1. Pressure to Compromise Ethics

Reporters may be asked or lured into acting against their professional codes: cutting off attorneys mid-record, ignoring transcript deadlines, or turning a blind eye to coverage gaps. This corrodes not only the court record but also the reporter’s sense of integrity.

2. Shared Blame for Wrongdoing

Toxic managers ensure that blame is distributed downward. If calendars collapse, if transcripts are delayed, if judges complain, it’s never the fault of administrative mismanagement. Reporters become unwilling accomplices, left holding the bag.

3. Recognition Withheld

No matter how much overtime is worked, no matter how many emergencies are covered, recognition never comes. Toxic managers view excellence not as something to celebrate but as a new baseline to exploit.

4. Guaranteed Mistreatment

Discrimination, harassment, and hostility are hallmarks of toxic cultures. In the courts, it shows up in favoritism, biased assignments, and punitive discipline. Empathy is absent. Retaliation is present.

5. Cognitive Dissonance

Reporters who entered the field with ideals of service, integrity, and professionalism soon find themselves torn. They know their work is sacred to justice, yet their treatment tells them they are disposable. Reconciling that gap drains mental and physical health.

6. Loss of Identity

Over time, reporters risk losing themselves. Instead of guardians of the record, they become functionaries—expected to keep quiet, do as they’re told, and accept mistreatment as the price of keeping a job.

The Physical and Psychological Toll

Working in a toxic court system isn’t just unpleasant—it’s damaging. Research shows toxic workplaces increase rates of:

  • Anxiety and depression from constant gaslighting and fear.
  • Cardiovascular stress due to unrelenting workloads and deadlines.
  • Sleep disturbances from the pressure of unacknowledged responsibility.
  • Burnout—a complete depletion of mental, emotional, and physical reserves.

Court reporters often describe symptoms of trauma: hypervigilance, mistrust, and dread at the sound of certain managers’ footsteps. These aren’t exaggerations; they’re real consequences of toxic management.

Why Toxicity Thrives in Superior Courts

How does this culture persist inside institutions sworn to uphold justice?

  1. Hierarchical Shielding: Toxic managers are protected by layers of bureaucracy. Complaints rarely reach judges or administrators with authority to intervene.
  2. Normalization of Abuse: When mistreatment is widespread, it becomes invisible—“just the way things are.”
  3. Fear of Retaliation: Reporters who speak up risk losing assignments, income, or even their jobs.
  4. Lack of Oversight: Few checks exist to hold court reporter coordinators or clerks accountable for how they treat staff.

In short, toxicity thrives because it serves power. As long as it keeps calendars covered and transcripts flowing, higher levels look away.

What Loyalty Really Means

Loyalty is often weaponized against court reporters. They’re told loyalty means silence, compliance, endurance. But loyalty to a toxic boss is self-destruction in disguise.

Real loyalty should be to the profession, to the record, and to one’s own well-being. Staying loyal to a parasite only drains the life from both reporter and record.

Planning an Exit from a Toxic Court

For reporters who find themselves trapped, survival requires strategy. Borrowing from workplace psychology, here’s a roadmap:

  • Do your job to the best of your ability so your record speaks for itself.
  • Build support outside the courthouse—mentors, peers, therapists, associations.
  • Consult professionals if mental or physical health begins to suffer.
  • Prepare your résumé and transcripts portfolio—proof of your skill and value.
  • Keep exit plans private—toxic managers retaliate when they sense departure.
  • Know your worth—don’t let abuse convince you you’re replaceable.
  • Map out next steps—whether freelance, CART, captioning, or relocation.
  • Care for yourself—toxic workplaces drain energy; you’ll need strength to leave and heal.

Leaving takes courage. Healing takes time. But both are possible.

A Call for Reform

It’s not enough for individuals to escape. Courts themselves must confront the toxicity in their midst and reimagine how they treat court reporters—not as disposable cogs but as human beings with professional dignity.

Oversight and Accountability

  • Independent oversight for reporter management, ensuring coordinators and clerks can’t abuse unchecked authority.
  • Anonymous reporting channels so reporters can safely document mistreatment without fear of retaliation.
  • Training and accountability standards for those who supervise or coordinate reporters.

Recognition and Retention

  • Recognition programs that honor the extraordinary skill and dedication required to keep the record.
  • Clear separation of administrative power from the statutory rights of certified court reporters, so bureaucrats cannot override professional ethics.

Rehabilitation Instead of Exile

Perhaps the most urgent reform is rethinking how licensing boards and courts handle reporters who falter on transcript deadlines or appellate work. Right now, the system punishes with ruthless finality: suspensions, removals from approved lists, even loss of license.

But ask yourself—what other profession treats its members with such unforgiving cruelty? Even serial criminals are given rehabilitation programs, probation, and paths to reentry. Court reporters, by contrast, are often excluded from working entirely after one misstep.

The reality is that many delays come from unforeseen circumstances: hospitalization, family emergencies, burnout from crushing caseloads, or systemic failures in staffing. Instead of stripping reporters of their livelihood, the profession needs:

  • Structured remediation tracks—programs that help reporters catch up on backlog with supervised support.
  • Reinstatement pathways—allowing those who fall behind to regain “approved list” status after meeting benchmarks.
  • Compassionate policies—acknowledging that one late appeal transcript should not end a career.
  • Peer support and mentoring—experienced reporters helping colleagues navigate recovery and compliance.

Justice is not served by destroying careers. Justice is served by rehabilitation, compassion, and accountability that aims to restore, not erase.

Final Word

The official record of court proceedings is the foundation of justice. But that foundation is crumbling under the weight of toxic management and punitive systems that value punishment over compassion. Reporters—loyal, skilled, essential—are being broken down, discarded, and treated worse than criminals for mistakes often born of circumstances beyond their control.

Parasites with power may believe they are untouchable. They are not. Court reporters see them clearly now, not as leaders, but as destroyers.

The choice for reporters is stark: conform and corrode, or protect yourself and plan your exit. And the choice for courts is just as urgent: reform now, or lose the last defenders of the record.

Because in a toxic court, survival isn’t about fitting in. It’s about refusing to be consumed—and demanding a path back for those who stumble.refusing to be consumed.

StenoImperium
Court Reporting. Unfiltered. Unafraid.

Disclaimer

“This article includes analysis and commentary based on observed events, public records, and legal statutes.”

The content of this post is intended for informational and discussion purposes only. All opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are based on publicly available information, industry standards, and good-faith concerns about nonprofit governance and professional ethics. No part of this article is intended to defame, accuse, or misrepresent any individual or organization. Readers are encouraged to verify facts independently and to engage constructively in dialogue about leadership, transparency, and accountability in the court reporting profession.

  • The content on this blog represents the personal opinions, observations, and commentary of the author. It is intended for editorial and journalistic purposes and is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
  • Nothing here constitutes legal advice. Readers are encouraged to review the facts and form independent conclusions.

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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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