Competition then caused the page rates to drop and reporters pay declined rather than at least keeping up with inflation. With the drop in pay, during a time when the economy was booming, fewer people elected to go into the field. The National Court Reporters Association reports that half of the court reporting schools in the country have closed in the last five years. In the meantime, disability laws have created a demand for court reporters to do closed captioning on television and realtime transcription of college lectures and public meetings and many reporters have left litigation for these new fields. In several parts of the country, we are already starting to see the result of the shortage.
Reporters are able to demand and receive higher page rates.
For the next several years this trend will probably continue, reversing the pay cuts that have dominated for the past decade. Well, our company initially made its reputation by being able to find reporters back when the market was tight. We have recently beefed up our Calendar Department and our reporter recruiting efforts to compensate for the shortage. In the longer term, we are supporting the National Court Reporters Association to get more people trained. A national vocational guidance publisher, and numerous schools around the country are using materials we have created to inform prospective reporters about the profession.