The legal record is the spine of the justice system. Every appeal, ruling, and public trust in the courts rests on its integrity. When record-making is treated as a technical task rather than an evidentiary duty, courts risk weakening the very structure that allows justice to stand. Defending the record is not administrative—it is constitutional.
Category Archives: Legal Services
When “Live Notes” Enters the Notice – What the Confusion Over AI in Depositions Is Really About
As artificial intelligence quietly enters deposition rooms under vague terms like “live notes,” court reporters are being forced into a new role: boundary-setters for the legal record itself. The issue is no longer whether proceedings can be recorded, but who controls what is captured, who is accountable for what is created, and what truly constitutes the official record in modern litigation.
Who Is Really Overcharging Attorneys? Inside the Business of Court Reporting in the Private-Equity Era
When attorneys receive shocking court reporting invoices, frustration is understandable. But those inflated charges are not enriching court reporters. They are the product of private-equity consolidation, corporate billing structures, and middlemen who control pricing while paying reporters a shrinking share. If the profession is being hollowed out, it is not by stenographers. It is by the business models built on top of them.
The Court Reporter Is the Custodian of the Record – Why Decentralized Evidence Systems Protect Justice
Court reporters are not just transcribers. They are custodians of a decentralized evidentiary system. Through layered capture, redundant backups, and personal legal responsibility, licensed reporters preserve the court’s memory across hundreds of sworn officers. Centralized recording systems collapse that structure into a single point of failure—making the legal record easier to manage, and easier to lose.
An Open Letter to Judges – On the Custody of the Record
The judiciary’s authority endures not through rulings alone, but through the integrity of the record. When courts weaken professional accountability over how proceedings are captured, they do not merely modernize operations—they destabilize the evidentiary foundation of justice itself. The legal record is not output. It is evidence. And evidence requires human, licensed custody.
The Record Is the Case – Why Saving Court Reporting Means Saving Legal Reality
The record is not a convenience. It is evidence.
Every ruling, appeal, settlement, and precedent rests on the integrity of the transcript. When courts weaken the standards governing how the record is created, they are not modernizing—they are destabilizing the very foundation of justice. Saving court reporting is not about preserving a profession. It is about protecting legal reality itself.
You Can’t Stipulate Your Way Around the Law – The Dangerous Fiction of the “No-Reporter Stipulation”
A court transcript is not a convenience. It is evidence. When attorneys stipulate to proceed without a court reporter, they are not authorizing an “alternative record.” They are agreeing that no lawful evidentiary record will be created. What follows—a stipulated statement of proceedings—is not a transcript, but a negotiated reconstruction. And evidence cannot be manufactured after the fact.
When Machines Become Witnesses – Why the Federal Judiciary’s AI Evidence Proposal Quietly Reinforces the Role of Court Reporters
The federal judiciary’s proposed rule on AI-generated evidence quietly draws a critical line: machine output is not inherently trustworthy and must be tested like expert testimony. That distinction reinforces the structural role of court reporters. A certified transcript is a human-governed legal record, not algorithmic evidence. Once the human layer disappears, the court record itself becomes something the law now admits is dangerous.
Imagine the Crime Scene
A homicide scene is sealed. Shell casings lie on the ground. A knife glints in the dirt. But instead of licensed evidence technicians, untrained contractors gather the items, store them in a warehouse, and weeks later unlicensed processors label what matters. When court begins, no sworn professional can certify integrity. The “evidence” collapses into mere objects.
The Legal Record Is Not a Decorative Byproduct of Litigation. It Is Evidence.
A legal transcript is not a convenience product. It is evidence. Evidence requires provenance, certification, and lawful creation. When proceedings are merely recorded and later transcribed by unlicensed individuals, the result is not a court record—it is media. Courts are quietly replacing evidentiary safeguards with technical workflows, downgrading the legal record from authenticated proof to a reconstructive artifact.
Why Judges Shouldn’t Rely on AI Yet – A Cautionary Case Against Generative AI in the Courts
As courts experiment with generative AI, the judiciary risks embracing a technology that is not yet reliable, transparent, or safe enough for justice. From hallucinated legal authority to inaccurate ASR records, today’s AI systems already struggle with basic courtroom functions. Introducing them into judicial workflows now risks compromising confidentiality, fairness, and public trust at the very moment the courts can least afford it.
When a Profession Is Under Siege, Its Trade Association Should Not Be Hosting Craft Night
As courts experiment with digital capture and AI transcription, the integrity of the legal record is under unprecedented pressure. Yet California’s flagship Court Reporting & Captioning Week is being promoted with craft nights and lifestyle events. At a moment that demands advocacy, public education, and professional defense, the association’s messaging risks trivializing a profession that exists to safeguard due process itself.
When the Courtroom Becomes a Dataset – Why Media Recording in 2026 Is No Longer Just “Coverage”
Courtroom recording is no longer simply about cameras and coverage. In 2026, it is about what happens after the audio leaves the room: automated transcription, cloud storage, permanent datasets, and uncontrolled reuse. When proceedings become machine-readable assets, courts risk losing authority over the official record, participant privacy, and the conditions necessary for fair, orderly justice.
Remote Reporting Didn’t Devalue the Profession. It Forced It to Clarify Its Value.
Remote proceedings did not cheapen court reporting. They stripped away logistics and forced the profession to confront what it actually sells: custody of the legal record. As rate debates intensify, the future of stenography may depend less on where reporters sit and more on whether the profession anchors its value in accountability, professional responsibility, and the integrity of the record itself.
AB 1189 Collapses — and Why That Matters More Than the Victory Lap Suggests
Assembly Bill 1189 did not collapse because of rhetoric or resistance to change. It failed because it attempted to shift control of California’s official legal record away from the state and into private hands. While its withdrawal is significant, it is not the end of the effort to reframe record creation. The next proposal will be quieter, cleaner, and harder to spot.
When an AI “Note-Taker” Shows Up to a Legal Proceeding
AI note-taking tools may be convenient in business meetings, but their presence in legal proceedings raises serious concerns about confidentiality, chain of custody, and record integrity. When unauthorized bots capture testimony, the official record can be compromised in ways that surface long after the proceeding ends. Protecting the record means understanding when technology crosses a legal line.
The AI Question Everyone Is Asking—And Almost Everyone Is Answering Wrong
The AI debate in court reporting and captioning is being framed incorrectly. This is not about whether humans are “better” than machines. It is about risk, accountability, and appropriate use. AI may assist in low-stakes contexts, but when the record carries legal or reputational consequences, decision-makers still need a licensed professional who can certify, correct, and stand behind the work.
When the Record Is Public, Who Pays for It?
Court transcripts are treated as public goods, but the labor that creates them is not. While federal courts quietly preserve a temporary restriction period before transcripts become freely accessible, state court systems operate under very different economic models. Together, these frameworks reveal how control of the legal record has shifted away from court reporters, steadily separating access from fair compensation.
The Readback Problem in Voice Writing—and How to Solve It
Readback is where the record proves its reliability. For voice writers, that moment too often collapses into rewind and guesswork when ASR fails. The solution is not better training, but better software: a persistent phonetic fallback, confidence-aware output, and word-level audio that function like steno notes. Voice does not need perfection—it needs an inspectable substrate.
The Voice Writing Question – Is the Fastest Entry Path Quietly Reshaping—and Risking—the Court Reporting Profession?
Voice writing is rapidly being marketed as the fastest path into court reporting, even as it remains unrecognized as stenography by the profession’s own national association. This article examines the growing disconnect between how voice writing is sold and how the legal record actually functions, why many machine reporters are learning voice for longevity—not superiority—and what happens when speed of entry outpaces experience in a profession built on precision.
When the Record Goes Missing – Digital Recording, Judicial Discretion, and the Fragility of the Official Court Record
As courts increasingly replace stenographic reporters with digital recording systems, the promise of efficiency collides with a harder truth: a recording is not the same as a reliable record. When equipment fails, speakers overlap, or entire proceedings go unrecorded, there is no safety net. The cost savings vanish quickly—leaving judges, attorneys, and litigants to reckon with what was lost.
When the Machine Gets It Wrong, Who Pays the Price?
Courts have been clear: artificial intelligence may assist lawyers, but it does not absolve them. When ASR systems miss testimony or AI summaries omit critical facts, responsibility does not vanish into the software. It lands squarely on the professionals who relied on it. As automation reshapes the legal record, a new reckoning over accountability is quietly approaching.
The Quiet Exploitation Behind the Federal Court Record
For more than twenty years, federal courts have profited from certified transcripts produced by court reporters—without compensating the professionals who created and certified the official record. PACER refunds may address user overcharges, but they do nothing to resolve the underlying exploitation of court reporters’ labor. Until reporters are paid for their work product, the federal court record rests on an unsustainable imbalance.
2026: The Year the Record Reasserts Itself
2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for court reporting. As courts and lawmakers confront the limits of agencies, AI, and automated recording, the profession is seeing renewed focus on responsible charge, accountability, and human judgment. Legislative clarity, reporter-centric technology, and coming court decisions may finally reassert who—and what—the legal record truly depends on.
When Software Tries to Stand In for a License – Why ASR “Cleanup” Is Not Court Reporting
As courts embrace automated speech recognition, a critical question is being overlooked: who controls the legal record, and where does it live? Replacing licensed court reporters with cloud-based transcription and post-hoc “cleanup” introduces risks that go far beyond accuracy. From silent realtime edits to juror privacy in voir dire, the integrity of the record—and public trust in the justice system—are at stake.
Vendors Are Not Officers of the Court
Court reporting agencies schedule proceedings and process invoices—but they do not create the legal record. Yet some national agencies are now attaching corporate “company certificates” to deposition transcripts they did not take and cannot lawfully certify. This quiet shift blurs statutory boundaries, risks inadmissibility, and threatens due process by substituting branding for licensure in the creation of sworn testimony.
Petition to the National Court Reporters Association – Request to Deny CEU Approval for Programming that Undermines Stenographic Capture
A slate of vendor-produced CEU programs is currently pending approval that promotes a method-agnostic view of record creation. This petition urges NCRA to act before approval is finalized, drawing a clear distinction between stenographic capture—machine or voice—by licensed professionals as opposed to digital recording systems that rely on post-hoc reconstruction. The moment to protect evidentiary standards is now, not after silence becomes consent.
If You Want Lower Transcript Costs, Help Create More Court Reporters
Transcript prices are not rising because court reporters are greedy; they are rising because there are fewer of them. Like any market, court reporting follows basic economic rules: when supply shrinks and demand grows, prices increase. If attorneys want lower transcript costs, the solution is not cheaper capture methods—it is helping rebuild, retain, and respect the human court reporting workforce.
Court Reporters, Technology, and Reality – Resetting Expectations in a Small Industry
Court reporting technology vendors are not Big Tech. They are small, specialized companies serving a shrinking professional market. Expecting instant, round-the-clock concierge support misunderstands the realities of the industry. Professional competence requires patience, self-sufficiency, and deep knowledge of one’s tools. When a reporter’s livelihood depends entirely on immediate vendor intervention, the risk is not poor service—it is misplaced dependency.
The Lessons of Badran – A Roadmap for How NCRA Must Defend the Legal Record
The Badran ruling exposed a growing risk: courts are redefining admissibility without guidance from the profession that creates the record. As audio-based reporting and vendor workflows spread, efficiency arguments are replacing evidentiary law. This article offers a clear roadmap for how NCRA can act—now, in active cases, and long-term—to defend due process, professional oversight, and the integrity of the record.
When the Record Becomes Elastic – Why Badran v. Badran Misunderstood Admissibility
Badran v. Badran exposes the danger of redefining testimony after the fact. In a remote deposition, a vendor-produced transcript was altered based on audio review, adding remarks not perceived in real time as testimony. Efficiency and stipulation cannot convert recordings into evidence. Without a licensed reporter in responsible charge, the record becomes elastic—and due process collapses.
When Efficiency Overrides the Law – Why Badran v. Badran Got Admissibility Wrong
The Badran v. Badran ruling did not affirm professionalism in modern depositions; it excused its absence. Admissibility does not turn on convenience, volume, or after-the-fact agreement. It turns on lawful process and qualified human oversight. Agencies are not officers of the record, and parties cannot stipulate away licensure, evidentiary foundation, or due process in the name of efficiency.
Petition to the National Court Reporters Association – In Re Stronger Regulatory Reforms for AI Innovation in Federal Court Proceedings
The integrity of the official court record is not a technology preference—it is a constitutional safeguard. This petition calls on the National Court Reporters Association to take a clearer, firmer position opposing AI-generated transcripts as the official record and to advocate for mandatory use of licensed stenographic court reporters to protect due process, accountability, and public trust in the justice system.
When Caution Becomes Capitulation – NCRA’s AI Filing and the Quiet Risk to the Court Record
As courts rush to embrace artificial intelligence, a quiet but consequential shift is underway. A recent federal submission by the National Court Reporters Association acknowledges AI’s flaws—yet stops short of drawing the line where it matters most. When caution replaces clarity, the integrity of the official court record, and the constitutional rights it protects, are placed at risk.
Celebration or Contradiction – When Corporate CEU’s Collide With the Reality of the Record
Corporate newsletters now celebrate “community” and “professional pride” while quietly advancing business models that make those same professionals optional. When private-equity-backed firms praise stenographers as essential yet invest in scalable digital replacements, the contradiction isn’t accidental — it’s strategic. Celebration becomes optics management, not advocacy, and reporters are left to reconcile flattering words with an economic reality moving in the opposite direction.
Using AI to Strengthen Your Voice – How Court Reporters Can Advocate Powerfully for Our Profession
AI isn’t here to replace court reporters—it’s here to amplify us. When used intentionally, AI becomes a strategic partner that helps reporters write stronger letters, clearer public comments, and more persuasive advocacy for our profession. It levels the playing field, giving every reporter the ability to speak with clarity, confidence, and impact. Your voice matters. AI simply helps the world hear it.
When the Machine Gets It Wrong, the Court Still Blames the Human
Courts across the country are delivering a blunt verdict on artificial intelligence: speed does not excuse accuracy. As lawyers face sanctions for AI-generated errors, judges are reaffirming an old rule in a new era—accountability remains human. In an age of automation, the certified court record and the professionals who create it have never mattered more.
When Practice Drifts From the Code – How Informal Norms Are Reshaping the Courtroom Record
In courtrooms nationwide, a quiet shift is underway. The rules governing the official record remain unchanged, yet everyday practice has drifted from the code. Realtime feeds and rough drafts, once tools for preparation, are increasingly treated as authoritative sources in high-stakes moments. This slow normalization of informality carries real legal risk—for attorneys, judges, and especially the reporters entrusted with preserving the record.
Relaxed, Rhythmic, Relentless – Why Letting Go Is the Fastest Way Forward in Stenography
In 2025, court reporting students are discovering a counterintuitive truth: speed does not come from pressure, panic, or perfectionism. It comes from rhythm, calm, and trust in the training already done. When stenographers stop treating every take like a verdict on their future, their writing smooths, accuracy improves, and progress accelerates.
Why “We’re Embracing AI” Is the Wrong Message for Court Reporting
In an era of relentless reassurance, court reporters are being told that embracing AI is the path forward. But optimism without precision is dangerous. Technology that assists a licensed human record is not the same as technology that replaces it. When method, authority, and chain of custody are blurred, the integrity of the legal record—not just a profession—is placed at risk.
When Capital Moves Faster Than the Courts – AI, Evidence, and the Next Legal Reckoning
As venture capital floods legal technology, artificial intelligence is being woven into the heart of litigation—often faster than courts, ethics rules, or evidentiary standards can respond. Tools that summarize testimony or generate chronologies promise efficiency, but raise unresolved questions about reliability, consent, and admissibility. History shows that when automation outpaces scrutiny, courts eventually intervene—sometimes after irreversible damage has already been done.
The Profession No One Talks About—Until Everything Depends on It
From ancient Phoenician scribes depicted in Disney’s EPCOT to modern realtime stenographers writing 225 words per minute at 95 percent accuracy, court reporters have always safeguarded civilization’s most critical words. They are the neutral architects of the legal record, preserving testimony that determines rights, liberty, and history itself. In an era of automation myths, their human precision remains indispensable.
When Speed Replaces the Record – What “FTR Now” Reveals About the Future of Court Transcription
A new legal tech product promises “searchable transcripts” from courtroom audio in minutes, built in just two days and priced at seven dollars an hour. But speed and convenience come at a cost. When automated transcription is mistaken for the official record, accuracy, accountability, and due process are quietly put at risk—often before attorneys realize the distinction matters.
A Court Reporter Christmas
The Polite Language of Professional Displacement
Veritext’s latest CEU webinar series is being framed as professional development, but its core message deserves scrutiny. By asserting that capture method does not matter, the programming advances a narrative that conflicts with evidentiary law, professional ethics, and NCRA’s stated mission. With CEU approval still pending, members have a narrow window to speak up—before silence is mistaken for consent.
Who Trained the Machine?
AutoScript AI is marketed as a “legal-grade” AI transcription solution trained on “millions of hours of verified proceedings,” yet the company provides no public definition of what verification means in a legal context or where that data originated. Founded and led by technology executive Rene Arvin, the platform reflects a broader trend of general ASR tools being rebranded for legal use without the transparency traditionally required in court reporting.
The Masks Court Reporters Wear—and the Cost of Wearing Them Too Long
Court reporters are trained to capture the truth verbatim, yet many have learned to suppress their own. In a profession built on accuracy and independence, silence has become a survival strategy. Over time, professionalism has been mistaken for passivity, and conformity for neutrality. The result is a culture where dissent feels dangerous—and where thinking independently is quietly discouraged.
An Open Letter to Kristin Cabot: A Profession That Understands Second Acts
Branded “unemployable” after a viral moment, Kristin Cabot’s story raises a larger question: what happens to capable professionals when public shame outpaces truth? Court reporting offers a rare second act—one grounded in skill, neutrality, and measurable merit. In a profession that values accuracy over optics, redemption isn’t performative. It’s earned, keystroke by keystroke.
Bridging the Career Services Gap in the Court Reporting Profession
Court reporting associations are facing a reckoning. Reporters are not disengaging because they dislike the profession; they are disengaging because their associations no longer align with their most urgent priorities: jobs, advancement, training, and real career security. In an era of technological disruption and shrinking pipelines, associations that fail to become career catalysts risk losing not just members, but the future of the profession itself.
When Two Depositions Are Scheduled but Only One Goes Forward – The Growing Fight Over Same-Day Cancellation Fees
Court reporters routinely reserve separate time blocks for each scheduled deposition. When one witness appears and another cancels, the afternoon no-show is a distinct economic loss—no different from how interpreters, electricians, therapists, or attorneys handle missed appointments. Two job numbers mean two billable events. Same-day cancellations must be compensated as a matter of fairness and professional standard.
STENOIMPERIUM 