If You Want Lower Transcript Costs, Help Create More Court Reporters

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

By the time most attorneys complain about transcript prices, the damage has already been done.

The shortage is real. The invoices are higher. Delivery times are longer. And the frustration—on both sides of the record—is palpable. What is often missing from the conversation, however, is a basic truth that every first-year economics student learns: prices rise when supply is constrained, and prices fall when supply expands.

Court reporting is not immune from the laws of supply and demand. In fact, it may be one of the clearest examples of them in action.

For more than a decade, the legal profession has steadily reduced the pipeline of stenographic court reporters while simultaneously increasing demand for transcripts, realtime feeds, expedited delivery, and appellate-quality records. The result is predictable: fewer qualified reporters doing more work under greater pressure, at higher cost.

If attorneys truly want to see transcript prices stabilize—or even decrease—the solution is not to chase cheaper capture methods or outsource the record to digital audio vendors. The solution is to help rebuild and retain the human court reporter workforce.

The Economics Are Not Complicated

The current shortage of court reporters is not a mystery. It is the outcome of deliberate market behavior.

Court reporting schools have closed. Enrollment has dropped. Training takes years, not months. Meanwhile, experienced reporters are leaving the profession due to burnout, physical strain, and increasingly hostile working conditions.

When supply shrinks and demand grows, prices rise. No amount of frustration changes that equation.

The legal industry’s response has often been to seek alternatives—digital recording, remote monitoring, or agency-controlled models that promise lower upfront costs. But these alternatives do not increase the supply of qualified reporters. In many cases, they actively suppress it by discouraging new entrants and driving seasoned professionals out.

Lower prices do not come from replacing skilled labor with inferior substitutes. They come from expanding the pool of skilled labor itself.

Stop Undermining the Pipeline

If attorneys want more court reporters, one of the most effective steps they can take is also one of the simplest: stop using digital reporters in proceedings where a stenographic record is feasible.

Digital recording does not create new court reporters. It does not train students. It does not mentor apprentices. It does not retain talent. Instead, it siphons work away from the very professionals who would otherwise sustain the pipeline.

When courts and firms rely on digital recording, they signal to students that stenography is a shrinking career with diminishing opportunity. Rational people do not invest two to four years of intensive training into a profession that appears to be under constant threat of replacement.

If the legal community wants more reporters, it must stop treating stenography as optional.

Reduce Dependence on Agency Middlemen

Another quiet but powerful force constraining supply is the agency model itself.

Many agencies control rates, schedules, deadlines, and policies that accelerate burnout. Reporters absorb the physical and cognitive labor, while agencies capture margins and impose production pressures that make long-term sustainability difficult.

Attorneys who work directly with reporters—or who support models that allow reporters greater autonomy—help keep experienced professionals in the field longer. Retention matters just as much as recruitment.

A reporter who leaves after 10 years is not easily replaced. The profession loses not only a skilled practitioner, but a potential mentor, instructor, and example for the next generation.

Retention Is an Attorney Issue, Too

Recruitment alone will not solve the shortage. Retention is equally critical—and attorneys play a direct role in whether reporters stay or leave.

Court reporting is physically demanding, mentally exhausting, and unforgiving of chaos. Yet many proceedings continue at a pace and volume that borders on hostile to the record.

Crosstalk. Interruptions. Rapid-fire questioning. Attorneys talking over witnesses. Judges allowing multiple speakers at once. Long days without meaningful breaks.

None of this is necessary.

Slowing down does not weaken advocacy. Clear, deliberate questioning strengthens it. Allowing witnesses to finish their answers improves the record. One person speaking at a time is not a courtesy; it is a prerequisite for accuracy.

When reporters are treated as invisible machinery rather than skilled officers of the court, they leave. When proceedings become miserable to report, they opt out of trials, realtime, or the profession altogether.

If attorneys want lower costs tomorrow, they must help make the job survivable today.

A Missed Opportunity in the Jury Box

One of the most overlooked opportunities to rebuild the court reporting workforce occurs at the end of every jury trial.

Jurors are attentive. They are engaged. They have just spent days or weeks watching a court reporter perform an intellectually demanding, highly specialized role in real time.

And then they are dismissed—without ever being told that they just witnessed a viable, lucrative, and meaningful career.

Courts could change this with a single paragraph.

Judges routinely give closing remarks when releasing jurors. Adding a brief statement about court reporting would cost nothing and could yield enormous returns.

A sample blurb might read:

“Before you leave, I want to briefly acknowledge the court reporter you’ve seen throughout this trial. Court reporting is a highly skilled profession that plays a critical role in our justice system. If any of you—or someone you know—are looking for a challenging career that values accuracy, technology, and public service, court reporting offers strong earning potential and long-term opportunity. Information about training programs is available through state and national associations.”

That is all it would take.

No lobbying. No funding. No curriculum changes. Just awareness.

Many court reporters entered the profession by chance—after hearing about it from a teacher, a counselor, or someone in the courtroom. Jurors represent an untapped recruitment pool that already understands the importance of the role.

Attorneys Are Market Participants, Whether They Like It or Not

Some attorneys bristle at the idea that they bear responsibility for workforce dynamics. But the legal profession is not a passive consumer of court reporting services. It is an active market participant.

Every choice—whether to use a digital reporter, whether to push for impossible speeds, whether to tolerate crosstalk, whether to insist on last-minute rushes as a default—shapes the market.

Complaining about prices while contributing to scarcity is not a strategy. It is a contradiction.

If attorneys want lower transcript costs, they must help expand supply. That means supporting stenographic reporting, retaining experienced professionals, and making the courtroom a place where skilled reporters want to stay.

The Long View

Court reporting is not a commodity. It is a profession that requires years of training, ongoing skill development, and extraordinary concentration. You cannot turn the pipeline on and off at will.

The choices the legal community makes today will determine whether there are enough reporters five years from now—or whether prices continue to rise due to chronic scarcity.

The solution is not technological substitution masquerading as efficiency. The solution is investment in people.

Supply and demand are not ideological concepts. They are economic realities.

If you want more court reporters, help make the profession viable, visible, and humane.

If you want lower prices, help increase the supply.

It really is that simple.

Disclaimer

This article reflects the author’s professional observations and opinions regarding court reporting workforce dynamics and litigation practice. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Views expressed do not represent any court, agency, bar association, or regulatory body. Readers should evaluate practices and policies in accordance with applicable laws, rules, and professional obligations.

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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