When the Record Is Public, Who Pays for It?

For more than two decades, the federal judiciary’s handling of court transcripts has quietly reshaped the economics of one of the legal profession’s oldest trades: court reporting. In “The Quiet Exploitation Behind the Federal Court Record,” I examined how certified transcripts — the official, certified word of a proceeding — have become simultaneously indispensable, taxpayer-financed, and profit-producing assets for courts and vendors, while the reporters who produce them have seen their economic power eroded.

But a recent comment from a Florida court reporter sheds new light on how transcript economics differ dramatically across jurisdictions — and reveals that the crisis facing freelance court reporters is not limited to federal practice. It also illustrates the ways in which attorneys and courts alike benefit from structures that extract value from transcript production while reporters themselves often receive little or nothing in return.

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Federal Courts – Restrict, Then Release

Under current federal judiciary policy, transcripts filed with a clerk’s office are initially restricted from general electronic access for 90 days. During that period, the transcript is only visible on a public terminal in the courthouse or to those who have purchased it from the reporter or transcriber. After 90 days, the file becomes accessible through PACER, the judiciary’s nationwide electronic case file system.

This restriction accomplishes two essential things:

1. It gives the reporter or transcriber a temporary monopoly on distributing the transcript.
2. It delays the moment at which the transcript is broadly downloadable without direct payment to its creator.

In practice, that means attorneys keen to access a transcript sooner, rather than later, have to pay the reporter’s fee, while the wider public only gains free access — often with a PACER charge — after months of delay.

What is less well-known outside the profession, and was not covered in my original article, is how this “locked period” functions in everyday practice. A veteran Florida court reporter shared this insight privately: she explained that in federal practice, attorneys are well aware of the 90-day rule and often order transcripts early precisely to avoid the public access date — knowing that transcript costs can be several hundred dollars or more. The reporter observed that this dynamic, while imperfect, at least temporarily protects the reporter’s compensation for work already performed.

In other words, federal courts preserve an economic boundary around the record that is both administrative and financial.

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Florida’s Administrative Order – Salaries, Deposits, and Fees

In contrast, a review of Administrative Order 2025-09.2 from Florida’s Twelfth Judicial Circuit (Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto Counties) highlights a very different model at the state trial level — one in which reporter compensation, access, and the economics of transcript production work on an entirely different axis than in federal court.

Under the order, the circuit uses an employee-based model for capturing the verbatim record of proceedings required to be reported at public expense. The order explicitly defines roles such as employee court reporters (official court reporters) and contract court reporters or transcriptionists, all of whom must comply with stringent reporting standards.

One passage in the order underscores the circuit’s stance on transcripts and payment:

“The courts have not been allocated funds to provide free transcripts to anyone, and payment must be made to the State of Florida, Twelfth Judicial Circuit, for all transcripts provided to requesting parties… With the exception of appellate transcripts… all transcript requests must be made online… and payment received before the completed transcript will be provided.”

The order also requires a 50 percent deposit before transcript work will begin, and full payment before a transcript is filed with the clerk.

This framework illustrates two fundamental truths about the state model:

• Reporters and transcriptionists are paid for their output, but through an allocated court system, not a marketplace of individual purchasers.
• The party ordering transcripts bears the cost upfront, and access to the final transcript is controlled by the court’s payment policy rather than public demand or attorney strategy.

At first glance, this may seem more equitable than the federal model, where transcripts sit in limbo before becoming free. However, this state model obscures, rather than eliminates, economic tension between the creation of the record and access to it.

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Freelance Reporters – A Vulnerable Middle Ground

This is where the Florida reporter’s comment gets especially compelling.

Unlike official court reporters — who are salaried and whose transcript income is managed by the court’s administrative framework — freelance reporters work independently. They rely on transcript fees as their entire source of income for a given job, without the safety net of salary, benefits, or court-administered fee systems.

Her experience exposes a common pattern in Florida practice:

• An attorney takes a deposition and pays the freelance reporter to record it.
• Opposing counsel then refuses to order or pay for a copy.
• Once the transcript is filed, opposing counsel obtains a free or reduced-cost copy from the court file, or requests a digital copy from another attorney rather than paying the reporter directly.

In her words:

“One attorney takes the deposition; opposing counsel states he doesn’t want a copy. Then waits for it to be filed in the court file where anyone can download it for free. Or, even worse, opposing counsel calls the taking attorney and asks for a free copy.”

This dynamic effectively converts the reporter’s labor into a free commodity for anyone who can wait or who can free-ride on another attorney’s purchase.

It’s a stark contrast to federal practice: in the federal system’s 90-day restriction period, a transcript cannot be broadly downloaded without going through the reporter or an authorized party first. In Florida’s system — and in many other state practices — the barrier between paid work and free access is often much thinner.

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The Economics of Access – Who Wins, Who Loses?

This divergence highlights a broader truth: access is not just a matter of public record policy, but a driver of economic incentives.

In federal court, the judiciary benefits from PACER fees and from centralized control of electronic records, and reporters still collect fees during the locked period. In state court, the judiciary collects transcript fees directly, often through online systems, and official reporters’ compensation is absorbed into broader administrative structures. Freelancers, who operate outside these institutional frameworks, are often left to negotiate for their fees while the record they painstakingly produce becomes accessible to all — sometimes at no cost to anyone.

This leads to troubling outcomes:

• Freelance reporters face income loss and exploitation because the transcript becomes a public good too quickly or without compensation.
• Attorneys and firms with better administrative resources can strategize around reporters’ revenue models.
• Courts position transcript access as neutral public service, even though the economics of transcription matter deeply to the sustainability of the profession.

As one freelance reporter put it, her experience was not rare; it is “the real crime because freelancers don’t get a salary or benefits.”

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Reframing the Debate

This new information reframes the core issue from last article: the problem is not simply that transcripts become public, but that the systems governing transcript access, payment, and distribution are structurally designed in ways that extract value from reporters’ work without equitably compensating those who create it.

The federal court’s 90-day restriction is not a perfect solution — it merely postpones when access becomes free. Nonetheless, it acknowledges that reporters deserve a protected economic space, even if temporary. Florida’s Administrative Order and similar state policies, by contrast, expect transcript costs to be borne upfront by the ordering party, but provide no protection at all for the independent contractor who must find paying customers in a marketplace where free access ultimately weakens their leverage.

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Toward Fair Compensation and Sustainable Practice

What does this mean for the profession and for policymakers?

• Transcript governance should prioritize equitable compensation — whether transcripts are digital, public, or subject to delayed release.
• Courts should revisit how access policies intersect with reporter livelihoods, ensuring that public access does not inadvertently undermine the sustainability of the profession.
• Attorneys and litigants should recognize the economic life of a transcript as more than a free afterthought in litigation strategy.

Without these conversations, the gap between the value of the record and the payments made to produce it will continue to widen — and the resulting exploitation will remain as quiet as the administrative orders that allow it.

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Disclaimer

This article is an independent journalistic and analytical commentary written for informational purposes only. It reflects the author’s research, professional experience, and interpretation of publicly available court policies and administrative orders. It does not constitute legal advice, and no statements herein should be relied upon as such. All referenced policies are subject to change and local variation.