The Vanishing 70/30 – How Hidden Billing Practices Are Reshaping Court Reporting Economics

For much of the modern freelance court reporting era, the relationship between reporter and agency was grounded in a relatively simple understanding: the reporter earned the majority of the page rate. Traditionally, the split resembled something close to 70/30 — the reporter, as the licensed professional creating the record, received the larger share, while the agency retained a smaller portion in exchange for scheduling, billing, and administrative support.

Over time, that principle quietly changed. The industry narrative shifted to a “50/50 split,” framed as a compromise reflecting rising overhead, technology costs, and nationwide booking infrastructure. Many reporters accepted the adjustment reluctantly, but pragmatically. If agencies handled marketing, collections, and logistics, then parity at least appeared defensible.

But a growing number of reporters are discovering that the modern billing structure is not actually 50/50 at all.

It only looks that way — until you see the client’s invoice.

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The Math That Doesn’t Add Up

Consider a real-world scenario that is becoming increasingly common:
A reporter is paid $2.80 per page for an original transcript. The client, however, is billed $11.25–$11.34 per page for the same transcript.

That is not a 50/50 split.
That is not even a 70/30 split reversed.

That is a four-to-one differential.

For a 120-page deposition, the reporter earns about $336 for producing the verbatim legal record — the sworn, certified transcript admissible in court. The client, meanwhile, is charged over $2,000 for the transcript alone, before appearance fees, litigation packages, archive fees, handling fees, technology fees, or unexplained surcharges.

In many invoices, the transcript itself is no longer the primary cost driver. The add-ons are.

Realtime streaming charges.
Delivery charges for electronic files.
Administrative processing fees.
“Platform” access fees.
Exhibit management fees — even when no digital platform was used.

The reporter typically sees none of these.

The result is a quiet but profound economic inversion: agencies no longer share revenue from the record; instead, they monetize the record around the reporter.

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The Illusion of Reporter Income

Even when agencies describe compensation as a “50/50 split,” the reporter’s portion is not profit. It is gross revenue — and it carries the full cost of production.

Unlike most subcontractors, court reporters fund the creation of the product they deliver.

From the reporter’s share alone come:

• scopist fees
• proofreading costs
• transcript production labor
• CAT software licensing
• equipment purchase and replacement
• realtime streaming hardware
• audio backup systems
• exhibit handling supplies
• secure storage and archiving
• internet, platforms, and data security
• continuing education and certification requirements

The agency does not pay for the record to be produced.
The reporter does.

So when a reporter receives $2.80 per page out of an $11+ billing rate, that $2.80 is not comparable to the agency’s portion. It is not a shared margin — it is the reporter’s entire production budget.

After expenses, the reporter’s effective share can drop below 25 percent of the actual transcript revenue.

In other words, the agency receives revenue from the existence of the record.
The reporter finances the creation of it.

This reverses the traditional professional model, where the skilled licensed provider retains the majority of compensation because they bear responsibility and production cost.

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The Invisible Price List

Unlike many regulated professional services, freelance court reporting operates largely without billing transparency requirements. The reporter usually does not know what the client was charged. The client usually does not know what the reporter was paid.

Both parties assume fairness.

Both parties may be wrong.

The reporter believes they agreed to a percentage split.
The client believes the professional performing the work is being compensated proportionally.

In reality, the two sides are separated by an opaque billing wall.

This lack of transparency creates a distorted marketplace. Attorneys make decisions about whether to use stenographic reporters, digital recording, or AI transcription based on price comparisons that reporters themselves never see. When a lawyer concludes that “court reporters are too expensive,” the reporter often has no idea what number the lawyer is reacting to.

The profession then absorbs the reputational damage for prices it did not set.

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The Healthcare Parallel

Other industries confronted this exact problem before.

Healthcare billing once operated similarly — providers delivered care, insurers negotiated payments, and patients received enormous bills with no visibility into actual costs. Eventually, legislators recognized that a market cannot function when the service provider, the payer, and the consumer all operate under different pricing realities.

Transparency laws followed. Hospitals must now publish chargemasters. Insurers disclose negotiated rates. Patients can compare costs before treatment.

The legal services ecosystem has never implemented an equivalent framework for deposition services.

Yet the same structural issue exists:
The professional performing the skilled labor does not control — and often does not even know — the price being charged in their name.

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The Long-Term Risk to the Profession

At first glance, high agency billing may appear beneficial. Larger invoices suggest a lucrative industry. But the effect over time is corrosive.

When attorneys repeatedly encounter unexpectedly high deposition bills, they do not blame billing architecture. They blame the service category.

They do not distinguish between:

• the stenographer creating the record
• the firm scheduling the deposition
• the corporate entity pricing the transcript

To the consumer, all three are simply “court reporting.”

This drives a predictable behavior cycle:

1. Client receives high invoice
2. Client searches for cheaper alternative
3. Vendor offers digital recording or automated transcription
4. Client believes technology solved the cost problem
5. Market share shifts away from stenography

Ironically, the very pricing strategies meant to maximize revenue per job may accelerate replacement of the underlying profession.

Reporters then face the consequences — not the entities setting the billing rates.

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Why Reporters Are Calling for Transparency

Increasingly, reporters are not demanding higher rates.

They are demanding visibility.

If an agency charges $11 per page while paying the reporter $2.80, the reporter wants to know. Not necessarily to renegotiate — but to understand the economic narrative being presented to clients.

Because without transparency:

• reporters cannot defend their value
• clients cannot make informed comparisons
• and market signals become misleading

Transparency does not mandate pricing caps.
Transparency restores informed consent.

When all participants see the same numbers, negotiations become real instead of theoretical.

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A Possible Legislative Framework

A transparency model for deposition services would not be unprecedented. It could be narrowly tailored and minimally intrusive:

1. Invoice Disclosure Requirement
   Clients must be informed of the reporter’s page rate or percentage range.
2. Compensation Disclosure to Reporter
   The reporter must be provided a copy of the client invoice upon completion of the job.
3. Itemization Standardization
   All add-on fees must be categorized under uniform definitions (delivery, platform, exhibit handling, administrative).
4. Prohibition on Misattribution
   No invoice may imply that reporter compensation equals the total transcript rate.

This would not regulate prices.
It would regulate information.

And information is what markets need to function.

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The Core Issue – Trust

At its foundation, stenographic court reporting is a trust profession. Courts trust reporters to produce an accurate record. Attorneys trust reporters to preserve testimony faithfully. Judges trust reporters to certify proceedings impartially.

But trust also exists economically.

When a client pays for a “court reporter,” they believe they are compensating the professional responsible for the record. When a reporter agrees to a percentage split, they believe the percentage corresponds to the transcript’s value.

Opacity breaks both assumptions.

The damage is subtle: no single invoice collapses the profession. Instead, confidence erodes gradually — deposition by deposition — until an entire field is perceived as overpriced and replaceable.

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The Path Forward

Technology will not determine the future of court reporting alone. Economics will.

If pricing structures continue to separate the professional service from the billed price, the market will misinterpret cost as intrinsic rather than structural. Clients will not abandon stenography because it lacks value; they will abandon it because they never saw its real cost.

Transparency does not weaken agencies.
Transparency stabilizes the ecosystem.

It allows:

• reporters to explain pricing honestly
• attorneys to compare services fairly
• agencies to justify legitimate overhead
• and courts to preserve a reliable record infrastructure

Without it, the profession debates technology while ignoring the pricing architecture quietly reshaping its survival.

The issue is not whether agencies should earn profit. They always have, and they always will. The issue is whether the marketplace understands where the money actually goes.

Until it does, the numbers will continue to tell a story — just not the true one.

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Disclaimer

This article expresses opinion and industry analysis based on publicly shared experiences and general business practices. It does not accuse any specific agency or company of wrongdoing and is not legal advice. Billing practices vary by jurisdiction, contract, and service agreement. Readers should review their individual contracts and applicable state laws before drawing conclusions.