The End of the Record?

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

How Verbit’s New Mobile App Threatens to Erase Transcript Integrity — and Reporter Livelihoods

When Verbit announced its new mobile recording app, it sounded, at first glance, like another convenience tool in the modern legal-tech toolkit. “Record anywhere, anytime,” the marketing boasts — a slogan that might excite a tech-savvy attorney, but should terrify every court reporter who understands what that truly means. Because when anyone can record everything, everywhere, without rules or oversight, we’re not just talking about losing copy sales. We’re talking about losing control of the legal record itself.

From Professional Record to Pocket Recorder

For generations, court reporters have been the official custodians of the record — officers of the court who certify the accuracy of every word. That trust is rooted in one thing: control. Control over the record, control over chain of custody, control over who can reproduce, sell, or distribute the transcript.

Now imagine a world where that control disappears.

Verbit’s mobile app invites users — attorneys, witnesses, paralegals, even interns — to hit “record” on their phones and capture depositions, hearings, or confidential conversations with no officer present. No oath, no certification, no accountability. The app can instantly upload audio to Verbit’s cloud, where AI engines can “transcribe” it using automated speech recognition (ASR). With one tap, the result is a searchable, shareable “transcript” — uncertified, error-ridden, and dangerously easy to distribute.

In the absence of clear regulations, this isn’t innovation. It’s deregulation through stealth.

A Business Model Built on Bypassing Stenographers

Let’s be clear – Verbit’s value proposition has never been about improving access to justice. It’s about scaling profit. Their acquisition spree — spanning digital-only agencies, transcription startups, and software integrators — has always pointed toward one goal: replace human court reporters with cheaper, faster, AI-based alternatives.

The mobile app is merely the final step in that strategy. If Verbit can normalize “self-recorded depositions” or “client-controlled transcripts,” they no longer need to contract reporters, pay appearance fees, or split copy sales. Every attorney becomes their own record producer — and Verbit becomes the silent intermediary, monetizing the data, analytics, and AI-training value of every uploaded file.

For reporters, this isn’t just the loss of income from copies. It’s the erosion of their very role in the justice system.

The Copy Sale – More Than a Revenue Stream

Some outside the profession might dismiss “copy sales” as a minor side hustle, a legacy business model in a digital age. But in reality, copy orders fund the infrastructure that ensures due process.

When a reporter covers a deposition, the appearance fee alone rarely compensates for the time, skill, and liability involved. Copy orders — from co-counsel, experts, or codefendants — provide the financial cushion that sustains the reporter’s career and the small businesses that employ them. It also incentivizes reporters to maintain accurate, impartial, and certified records.

Remove that incentive, and the entire economic ecosystem collapses.

Now imagine Verbit’s app automatically distributing uncertified AI transcripts to all parties for free or for a nominal digital fee — with no copy revenue returning to the person who actually produced the official record. Once that precedent is set, attorneys will come to expect transcripts as a bundled feature, not a billable product.

The Legal Vacuum – When Technology Outpaces Regulation

In most jurisdictions, rules governing the creation and sale of official transcripts were written decades ago — long before smartphones, cloud storage, or AI transcription existed. Statutes like California’s Code of Civil Procedure §2025.510 and §269 presuppose a single certified reporter as the custodian of the record. They say nothing about parallel recordings or AI “drafts.”

That silence creates a dangerous gray zone.

If an attorney records a deposition using Verbit’s mobile app while a certified reporter is also present, who owns that audio? Can it be uploaded, transcribed, and sold independently? If the AI version conflicts with the certified transcript, which governs? What happens when a judge or jury sees a “transcript” that looks official but isn’t?

Until regulatory bodies — like the Court Reporters Board of California and its counterparts nationwide — address these questions, the door is wide open for abuse.

The Ethical Fallout

Beyond the legal risks lies a deeper ethical one: erosion of trust. The courtroom is one of the few places in modern life where words have irreversible consequence. To record testimony without consent, certification, or supervision undermines that sanctity.

A mobile app cannot administer an oath. It cannot halt proceedings when multiple people speak over one another. It cannot identify which “voice” belongs to which speaker, or discern sarcasm, dialect, or tone.

But AI will still assign those words to someone — and once uploaded, that misattributed record could live forever, shaping outcomes, negotiations, even reputations.

When truth becomes data, and data becomes a commodity, the moral compass of the record itself spins out of alignment.

What Reporters Can Do

The temptation is to panic — to imagine the end of stenography as we know it. But history offers a different lesson: every technological threat has also been a call to adapt.

Court reporters survived the shift from manual shorthand to machine, from analog to digital, from paper notes to realtime. Each evolution required vigilance, advocacy, and modernization — but also a reassertion of what makes the human role irreplaceable: accuracy, impartiality, and certification.

Now is the time to double down on those values.

  • Educate attorneys about certification laws. Many do not realize uncertified AI transcripts may be inadmissible under state evidence codes.
  • Demand regulatory clarity. Write to boards, legislators, and bar associations urging new language that prohibits uncertified recordings from being treated as official transcripts.
  • Embrace secure technology. Use verified platforms that protect reporter copyright and enforce encryption, rather than yield ground to unregulated cloud tools.
  • Unify around professionalism. The future belongs to the record that can stand up in court — not to the one that merely uploads faster.

The Bigger Picture

Verbit’s mobile app is more than a convenience feature; it’s a Trojan horse. Behind its friendly interface lies a paradigm shift — one that risks converting live testimony into raw AI data streams owned by private corporations instead of officers of the court.

If we allow that to happen unchecked, the very concept of an “official record” could vanish. And when the record loses its sanctity, justice loses its foundation.

The law depends on certified truth — not algorithmic approximation. The public has a right to transcripts that are verifiable, impartial, and permanent. The moment we let anyone record anything, anywhere, without oversight, we transform the courtroom into content — and truth into a subscription model.

Hold the Line

This isn’t about resisting technology. It’s about defending integrity.

Reporters must remind the legal system that accuracy is not an app feature — it’s a constitutional safeguard. When the power to create the record leaves the hands of certified professionals and enters the pockets of whoever has the newest phone, the scales of justice tilt toward chaos.

So yes, Verbit’s app may be able to record everything. But it can’t record integrity. That’s still our job — and it’s one we must never surrender.

StenoImperium
Court Reporting. Unfiltered. Unafraid.

Disclaimer

This article reflects my perspective and analysis as a court reporter and eyewitness. It is not legal advice, nor is it intended to substitute for the advice of an attorney.

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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