We all know that Dave Wenhold’s big focus was getting a national notary through Congress when he was the lobbyist for NCRA. Now that he’s the Interim Executive Director and CEO, is that still NCRA’s big goal?
Recently, a bunch of past presidents and leaders of NCRA, as well as executives from the big-box shops, “Benedict-Arnolded” to the electronic recording organization, so we’re sure that they’ll all be advocating for a national notary, too.
The big gathering of state leaders from around the country ends with face-to-face meetings with Congressmen and Senators on “The Hill.” Is it a push for a national notary that is going to be touted, or will the NCRA board take a public stance against being able to swear witnesses over the Internet and phone lines?
We want to know: Where does the NCRA stand on a national notary?
Will this be the final nail in the coffin for independent steno reporters – still the bulk of NCRA’s membership?
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please don’t play semantics tricks on us by coming up with a new name for “notary.”
P.P.S. State leaders attending boot camp: Beware! Remember, you are there representing your membership.
From a past president who has been screaming from the mountaintops that the sky is falling regarding a shortage of steno reporters across the country; has a company that uses steno reporters remotely; is pushing for a national notary so witnesses can be sworn in across the country from his own basement:
“I’ll try to be less snarky … We NEED a way to swear witnesses nationally.”
Yep, you’ve read it correctly. His thoughts from his head down to his fingers, sent from us to you.
Like we’ve said before: The National Court Reporters Foundation is putting together a “best practices” guide for remote reporting (paid for by the sweat of the donations of Angels!) to benefit one remote reporting company. This “best practices guide” will be wonderful for marketing, along with the sanctioning that the title of “president of NCRA” will give them. It will be so much easier with a national notary, too.
And here we also have a quote from an NCRA board member recently appointed by the board, even though he lost a past election or two:
“Kudos to Reesa, Bill, Judy, and whoever else may be involved. A remote reporter fills the gap in remote areas where, yes, the shortage (or unwillingness to move there) doesn’t allow for a reporter on-site.”
So, do you think that “Reesa, Bill, Judy, and whoever else may be involved” (in the remote reporting company) are going to show up with NCRF’s best practices guide, the imprimatur of two past presidents and one past NCRA board member, AND a national notary, and limit their marketing to “remote areas where, yes, the shortage (or unwillingness to move there) doesn’t allow for a reporter on-site”?
Yeah, we don’t think that they’re going to stop where there is a perceived shortage either. Of course, we believe that the shortage is going to be work for reporters living in every state in the country that the remote reporting company enters.
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to steno reporters that you know, so they are informed about what the National Court Reporters Foundation is spending their hard-earned donations on AND what past and present leadership are doing to line their own pockets.
P.P.S. NCRA Board: How much more are you going to help the national consolidators put your rank and file membership/local reporters out of business? You MUST put a kibosh to the NCRF publishing “best practices” for a company owned by former leaders of NCRA. When is enough going to be enough already?
That one company is owned by two past presidents of NCRA.
Why is the National Court Reporters Foundation, through a “Remote Reporting Committee,” ”working on educating the industry on remote judicial reporting and potentially coming up with best practices, provide seminars, etc.”?
So now when those two presidents go out to market their remote reporting company, not only do they have the imprimatur of being past presidents of NCRA, they can say that the NCRA is totally behind their company by saying, “Hey, look, NCRA has seminars on remote reporting, they’ve developed best practices, and even provide seminars on remote reporting.”
All we can say is “CHA-CHING!” for two past presidents … again, on the backs of those wonderful angels (and the huge donation from that big 1-800 company).
Now, all they’ll need is a national notary so they can swear witnesses over the Internet in your state, too. Of course, they’ve promised to send you a check every time they take your work and give you the opportunity to stay home, right? No way THAT can go wrong!
The NCRF taking this big step that benefits just a couple of members is wrong … on many levels. Taking this big step for a couple of past presidents is simply unconscionable.
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
A past NCRA DSA recipient and co-chair of SOS Plan B, the catalyst for the change in the conversation to digital recording going on right now – and the group that was not-affiliated-whatsoever-
“Sandy Bunch Vanderpol: Since NCRA is a boutique association, representing and promoting “Steno Only,” I understand the Board’s actions. However, I don’t necessarily agree. I would like to receive data that steno is the only option for judicial reporting, depositions more specifically … NCRF, and I as the chair of the NCRF Remote Reporting Committee, is working on educating the industry on remote judicial reporting and potentially coming up with best practices, provide seminars, etc. …”
All of us here at WUNCRA — and we’re sure general membership of the “boutique association” called NCRA — want to know if this “chair of the NCRF Remote Reporting Committee,” is an owner in, has any affiliation with, is besties with, or is expecting any remuneration whatsoever from any company or associate of any “remote reporting” company. We also want to know under which board/president this chair of NCRF’s Remote Reporting Committee became a trustee of the NCRF.
Perhaps the “angels” should cease all donations to the NCRF until membership is provided with the requested data.
We took our own poll, and our data reflects that 100% of us here at WUNCRA agree that NCRA needs to continue to represent and promote “Steno Only.”
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
All of us here at WUNCRA have been patiently waiting for the NCRA board to reveal their big plan for countering the very well organized group that is changing the conversation in this country from stenographers to digital recording.
But all we are hearing are … crickets!
While the board is redefining itself into NCRA 2.0, the world, once again, is passing it by. A big bunch of past presidents of NCRA are attending the national convention of digital recorders in Orlando in a couple of weeks, and what have we heard from the board? Crickets!
The theme of the recorders’ convention is “The Paradigm Shift”!!! A past president with a Ph.D. is the keynote speaker!!!
Here’s a secret NCRA Board: This digital recording onslaught is a bigger issue to steno reporters than contracting! You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
A bill was introduced in California, AB 424, clarifying a current law:
“Existing law provides procedures for the recording of depositions by means of audio or video technology. A party who intends to offer an audio or video recording of the deposition in evidence must accompany the offer with a stenographic transcript prepared from the recording, unless a stenographic record was previously prepared.
“This bill would clarify that a stenographic transcript accompanying an audio or video recording of deposition testimony offered into evidence must be prepared by a certified shorthand reporter.”
Planet Depos, whose director of court reporting is a past president of NCRA, submitted an opposition to the clarifying bill stating that digital recorders “perform the same functions as a stenographic reporter on the job.”
We need somebody out there getting in front of this assault!
There is nothing that NCRA does right now that is more important than getting front of the misrepresentations and deceit that has already begun to bleed into the profession.
Aside from “essential services,” we implore the NCRA board to put EVERYTHING else aside and get all hands on deck to represent stenographic reporters.
We are tired of hearing … crickets!
WAKE UP, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to every stenographic reporter that you know so that they know what’s coming down the pike, too!
We now have the knowledge that our leaders have betrayed us. We know that at least two, and likely three, past presidents are going to the national recorders convention in Orlando, Florida.
Steve Z. sent out an e-mail on the firmowners’ listserv:
“I’m a corporate member of AAERT because a part of my business consists of transcription, and I plan on attending. I do know that there are quite a few members of AAERT that are also members of NCRA, as well as other associations.
“FWIW, in my opinion, NCRA and AAERT have quite a bit in common. Mainly, putting words on paper.
“Also, I’ve tested some AI technology in the marketplace to keep tabs on its progress, and exactly how it works.
“Knowledge is power; right?”
Don’t you wish that you knew sooner about his opinion that stenographers and digital recorders are effectively equivalent because, after all, both are just “putting words on paper”? Don’t you wish you knew this BEFORE giving him the moniker of president of NCRA … for the rest of his life?
AND the keynote speaker in Orlando is another past president of NCRA who tries to come off as so forward-thinking, when in reality he’s just giving his imprimatur to digital recorders AGAINST stenographers who thought he was serving them. Silly stenographers. We wonder how much it costs to get a past president of NCRA to play Judas by being a keynote speaker:
“The Paradigm Shift and the Choices You Will Make
“Life is about the choices we make. With the court reporting industry at a critical crossroad, business people must face the reality and make the critical choices that will ultimately impact their survival and prosperity as the industry continues its shift in response to internal and external pressures. Change is a constant, and adaptability is a critical survival tool as change occurs. One can make educated choices and be right or wrong, but standing still and struggling to maintain the status quo in the face of a dynamic force will only guarantee that you will not be standing long.”
Of course, how good do you think the odds are that yet another past president will be in Orlando representing a major digital recording company? What a trifecta!
And what do we hear from our current NCRA president:
“Your 2019 board would like to acknowledge that it stands firmly behind the stenographic court reporting community and does not condone or support the training or implementation of digital recorder operators. While NCRA is aware that a variety of business models exist for capturing the important records of our legal community, NCRA exists by its governing documents to support the stenographic model of capture.
“In addition, please be advised that on January 29, 2019, the Executive Committee of the NCRA Board of Directors took the following action: “MOTION made, seconded and carried to immediately suspend the solicitation of new NCRA Corporate Partnership agreements until such time as the NCRA Board of Directors can review the program in full.”
The board’s actions are just reactionary — always in damage-control mode — while past presidents are attending and keynote-speaking at recording association meetings. NCRA is just hanging on by threads! All of us here at WUNCRA understand that these past “leaders” have left a huge mess to clean up. But why does the board continue to run the association behind a cloak of secrecy? That is exactly how we got to where we are right now. We want to know which board members voted FOR the new NCRA Corporate Partnership agreements in the first place. Why did it take so long to “suspend the solicitation of new NCRA Corporate Partnership agreements”? And are the “partnership agreements” that have already been signed up and allow nonmembers a “seat at the table” still in effect?
If meetings were more accessible, minutes were not just skeleton minutes, and individual votes were made public, membership would have known which “leaders” should never have been on the board. Everything has been done in secrecy – and it continues!
Has the last president that resigned been defrocked from NCRA? Or was it the board that asked her to step down but didn’t let membership know about it? Membership doesn’t know, because everything is a big fat secret.
From a recent forum post:
“I just became aware that Veritext is introducing digital recording here in Massachusetts and encouraging lawyers to modify their deposition notices to include same as a method of transcription.”
Didn’t we predict a few months ago that the SOS Plan B* was trying to change the conversation? There you go, the conversation has changed. Was the past DSA recipient who formed SOS Plan B a naïve pawn, or is the blessing of recording the conversation that she was looking for? We know that the co-chair of that group from Buffalo became a corporate member of the recorders — just like Steve Z. — right before the “SOS Plan DR “ group began. The “paradigm shift”** has been in the works a very long time. While the NCRA board was spending time creating its strategic plan trying to save itself, the world was passing it by.
Maybe the best thing to do is shut NCRA’s doors and divvy up the remaining few dollars to the paltry membership that still exists. That way the moniker of “Past President of NCRA” wouldn’t have so much cachet (or more accurately, CA$H!).
It feels like NCRA is in a deep sleep and will never wake up! But we’ll keep trying.
WAKE UP, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please, you have a Ph.D. that you toss around – come up with something besides the old saw of “’change is a constant,’” and if you don’t adapt the world is going to leave you behind.” Especially since the real “constant” seems to be former “leadership” selling us out.
* $ELL OUR $OUL$ PLAN B
** “Paradigm Shift” is the theme of the recorders’ association’s meeting in Orlando. We’re sure the theme was developed before all the SOS began.
The Business Summit, formerly known as The Firm Owners Executive Conference, is set for February 1 through 3, 2019, in San Diego. Yes, for a mere $1,045 registration fee, you, too, can attend. If you want to stay in the hotel where the “summit” is being held, that will be an additional $255 a night, plus taxes and fees. We haven’t yet added in roundtrip travel to and from San Diego or food and drinks. You don’t even need to be a member of NCRA to attend this “summit.”
But as you can remember from back in March, 2018, you didn’t’ need to be a member of NCRA to speak at a board meeting while dues-paying members were turned away because the venue was too small to accommodate those members that wanted to attend.
Weren’t a couple of those nonmembers that spoke at the board meeting the same nonmembers that are panelists on the “Truths and Myths” discussion on “multi-case litigation” – the new name for “third-party contracting.” Lipstick on a pig?
Then the president-elect of the association chimed in saying that we don’t even know what terms like anti-trust, networking, bidding, third-party contracting, legal contracting with governmental entities mean because those terms are all called third-party contracting. Wow!!! It looks like we’re going to run out of lipstick for that pig.
The president-elect also went on to say that this panel is “an opportunity to find common ground as professional reporters and firm owners in dealing with the reporter issues, educational approach changes for getting students through more efficiently and what that would look like, what works/doesn’t, as well as other issues facing our industry collectively”; although none of that was even mentioned in the synopsis of the panel discussion. Sounds like lipstick on a pig to all of us here at WUNCRA.
It appears that the only people able to pay to go to the “summit” are those big-box executives making hundreds of thousands or millions in salaries off the backs of the steno talent.
And hold on, everybody, a former director will slap you down at that “summit” with some more “tough love” to challenge your “most sacred beliefs about the business of court reporting with a focus on why being stuck in 1985 isn’t going to alleviate any of the issues faced by agencies and reporters in the 21st century.” Some of us here at WUNCRA seem to recall that he was part of a group that hired a former Texas Supreme Court Justice as a lobbyist to get the current Texas Supreme Court to change its stance on “protecting the public from unfair reporting pricing.” If you remember, Texas had the brilliant one-third rule – the price of a copy of a deposition could not exceed one-third of the price of the O&1 of a deposition. It worked really well back in 1985 through 2018. But, you see, certain “multi-case litigation” businesses couldn’t “compete” under that brilliant rule. So now we all need some tough love with that lipstick on a pig.
If the board just comes out and says, “Listen, these guys paid tens of thousands of dollars for their NCRA advertising program, and this seminar was a part of that package” — lipstick on a pig — “plus, this agenda was set up by a former immediate past president and a probably fired CEO, and it’s just too late to change it,” you may just garner some understanding from membership.
Also, we hope that the board is doing some investigating on all of the rules that were violated by the immediate past president – including her exiting barbs on social media. Are you recalling all of the turmoil she caused back in 2018 based on private conversations that she had without the board even knowing about them? Seems to us like being defrocked from the association is in order. She’ll always be able to bear the moniker of “President of NCRA,” though – just like that president that sold us down the recording river.
MWAH!!! ;-*
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. We’re sure that the presenters of “Myths and Truths” will be glad to front the $$$ to broadcast their seminar live. Maybe the board should add a few more thousands of dollars to their “advertising package” to accommodate them blasting their “myths” directly out to the membership.
P.P.S. The NCRA board sent out a shameless e-mail blast this morning capitalizing on the angst of membership: “Don’t Miss Third-Party Contracting: Truths and Myths Panel Discussion.”
NCRA has lost a CEO and four board members within a month. We lost the CFO somewhere along the line, but nobody has let us know when that happened.
THAT IS SOME TURMOIL!!!
Something REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad must have been discovered to have lost so much “leadership” in an organization in such a short span of time.
All of us here at WUNCRA have had “that icky feeling” for many, many years. Please check out some of our previous posts.
Did someone’s or someones’ hands get caught in the cookie jar?
Maybe now there will be a full accounting of the $5 million that was made from the fully-paid-off building that was sold behind closed doors. How much rent is being paid on the Class-A office space?
Membership has SO MANY questions, and we deserve to have answers to ALL of them!!! Secrecy breeds mistrust – for instance, causing membership to dwindle down from 36,000 to 11,000. (That’s 25,000 people also experiencing “the ickies.”)
Also, now is not the time for public relations damage control. Membership is beyond all of those platitudes!!!
One thing that we all agree on here at WUNCRA is that we object to the gentleman appointed by the board to fill in until the next election. He lost two elections. Doesn’t that tell the board that MEMBERSHIP does not want him as a board member?
When you keep on doing the same old things, expect the same old results.
There are so many fine members out there qualified to lead NCRA out of these tumultuous times. We threw out names just off of the top of our heads and in less than a minute came up with a fine gentleman from Washington, two or three marvelously smart women from Texas, and one from Colorado.
Board members, please reconsider that appointment for the betterment of the organization.
WAKE UP, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
So, there was a group formed through some of the NCRA forums that come into our email systems. They call themselves “SOS Plan B,” and they met in New Orleans. It began under the guise of the horrible shortage of reporters around the country. Even though the group was formed through NCRA, and they met in New Orleans at the same time as the NCRA convention, these folks are very careful to say that they are not affiliated whatsoever with NCRA.
We understand that this group is calling itself a taskforce (you know, kinda like NCRA does), and they’ve sent out surveys. They’re asking questions about notary laws in your state; the use of remote court reporters to cover your book of business; about feedback received from the reporter regarding remote reporting (like remote reporting is already happening and is “standard” – we’re all so “yesterday,” aren’t we?); if non-stenographic methods can be used to make the record in your state; they want to know the relevant statutes for transcriptionists and proofreaders in your state; formatting rules in your state; whether there are rules for contracting and certification in your state. Lots of good info that would simply be “REVOLUTIONARY” for certain businesses that would just love to do all the work remotely that you’re currently doing onsite. All they need to get is a little bit of buy-in and answers to their innocent-looking survey and their Plan B becomes B-B-B-B-BAD to the BONE for the businesses that reporters have built over a lifetime of work.
Go check out the electronic recorder website and see who is being congratulated for joining as a corporate member – it’s “now something completely different” for the vice chairman of the meeting-not-affiliated-whatsover-with-NCRA-but-held-in-New-Orleans-at-the-same-time-as-the-NCRA-convention. We even have a past president of NCRA that is very proud of his AAERT membership (we seem to recall that he left before his time was up on the board, but is still able to use his NCRA past presidency as a great marketing tool for his recording transcription business).
We have another “leader” who began the threads to gather a bunch of folks in New Orleans under the guise that “the sky is falling” in the reporting world around the country, especially in California.
We are tired of hearing that the stenographic reporter is the “gold standard” for reporting. The stenographic reporter is the standard for reporting – gold, silver and bronze — and that should be the mantra that we all should be shouting from the rooftops.
A firmowner, who also happens to be on the board of directors of NCRA, wrote a beautiful article about the huge differences between stenographic court reporters and recorders. She went over the pitfalls of audios and the cons of developing technology (such as photoshopping voiceovers!). But a past president of NCRA — and a principal in one of the companies that has a tremendous amount to gain from remote reporting — jumped all over that firmowner about a thin and vague line between being a firmowner and a board member and how she should be very careful about what she posts because the readers may not be able to understand her warning that the article contained her personal opinions, and not those of the NCRA board. (Why, we all wonder here at WUNCRA, are those concepts not coming from NCRA’s board anyway?)
Here are solutions to the “reporter shortage,” just off the tops of our heads here at WUNCRA:
- Paying reporters a fair wage for their skills and talent and copy sales!!! Betcha there wouldn’t be “shortages” if we got back to paying reporters what they should have been paid all along. It is a travesty that salespeople at 1-800 firms are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while the pesky talent is getting the coffee grounds left in the bottom of the mug. We think that most reporters can sell the profession of reporting, but how many salespeople can stenographically report a deposition?
- Firmowners need to network, network, network.
- This perceived “shortage” will scale back those contracts that started the decline of the profession.
Our fellow reporters, a conversation is trying to be changed with our help and under false pretenses. That conversation is SOS Plan B – BEWARE!!!
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
Please vote FOR Robert’s Rules of Order to be the guide for all of NCRA’s meetings! … and NO! to all of the other proposed Bylaws changes!
PLEASE VOTE, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to ten NCRA members so that they know that Online Voting is Open Now, too!