Humans Get Humans (Better Than Electronic Recordings): Stephanie Leslie

Tim Kowal Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tim Kowal. Both Jeff and I are certified appellate specialists and as uncertified podcast co-hosts, we try to bring our audience of trial and appellate attorneys some legal news and perspectives they can use in their practice. If you find this podcast helpful, please recommend it to a colleague. And if Jeff were not absent today with an unexcused absence, he would say to please give this podcast a five-star wherever you listen to your podcast.

Today, we are very pleased to welcome Stephanie Leslie to the show. Stephanie is the co-founder and CEO of Regal Court Reporting in Santa Ana. She has more than 20 years of experience as a working California court reporter. She's the immediate past president of the California Deposition Reporters Association, and she has testified before the California Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of the court reporting profession. Welcome to the podcast, Stephanie.

Stephanie Leslie Thank you for having me.

Tim Kowal And, you know, Jeff and I, as appellate attorneys, obviously, we are beholden to you and your profession because without court reporters and without a record, we have nothing to do as appellate attorneys. Everything is based on the record. If there is, if it wasn't in the record, it didn't happen. So obviously, we are beholden to you, as I said. And, sometimes we get a little bit critical to clear the air when there is no court reporter or record.

And there are very slim pickings other than having a certified shorthand reporter transcript available. So we were anxious to talk with you about your experience from the trenches in court proceedings and in depositions and in building that record. We wanted to get a perspective of what that's like and give our audience of trial attorneys some perspective because I'll just put it to you, you've probably spent more time in courtrooms than most attorneys and you spent more time in different departments than even most judges because most judges spend a lot of time in the courtroom, but in their own courtroom and in their own courtroom culture and their own rules, but you've gotten around. So we're interested in getting some of your dispatches from the trial courtrooms.

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, well, I really appreciate being given the platform to share our perspective because I'm sure it's the same with you all. You know, attorneys talk to attorneys and you all hear the same perspective and it becomes sometimes an echo chamber. That's how it becomes, that's how it is with court reporting sometimes. So I do think it's important that we share ideas and compare notes and see if we can work together and try to solve these issues that are happening. So I appreciate it.

Tim Kowal Well, one thing I thought we'd talk about the AI hallucination era that we're still living in. And I wonder if you have any perspective or any stories about how AI touches your world as a court reporter. Do you see AI hallucinations coming into play in courtrooms where you're reporting or depositions or... But what's your perspective on how AI touches the courtrooms and the record that you're preparing?

Stephanie Leslie Well, I have never seen it personally. I've heard stories. I've heard of instances happening which are awful to think about. But if I'm there, typically AI is not. So I haven't seen any deep fake videos being played in court. I haven't witnessed that. The fear of it, not just replacing us, but just the fear of that being able to occur and replace someone's words or it just, it's a little frightening. And I know that that is the alternative or one of the alternatives to having a live stenographer in the room is, there is AI and it is getting better and voice recognition and all of that. But those things can happen and then oops, what happens if a hallucination does happen and it's not accurate. So obviously that's the fear, right? That's what everyone's talking about.

Tim Kowal There are a lot of people now recording outside of the courtrooms, but getting more familiar with using AI recording apps and transcription apps. And you probably are met with the question, why is a certified transcript better than what I can produce using AI through like Otter or Fireflies or some other AI transcription service? Why is a certified shorthand reporter is still the gold standard in the AI age.

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, well, just like I'm going to use an example. Whenever I have to hire a website creator or someone to create my website, to build it to me, it's like, how hard is that? You put up some pictures, you put up some words. Why are you charging me $15,000 to make this website? How hard could it be? I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, the coding, the whatever they do is this magic behind the scenes that up pops a website. And similarly, it looks like it's easy. We're just kind of barely moving our hands and we're quietly sitting there. But it does take a huge level of skill to be able to duplicate that. And if everyone were speaking clearly and one at a time and without a thick accent, yes, I do think that that could be possible. But you know how litigation can go. There are hot moments. There might be a bang on the table at the exact moment someone answers, and it's the big confession, I don't know. And so if I'm there and I miss it, the idea is I'm supposed to stop. My licensure requires me to make sure I get it on the record. So just having a human element, I think, is irreplaceable. I joke that at a lot of these law firms that I go to, the business complexes, they've replaced the guy sitting in the booth taking your ticket and you paying him for parking with a machine. But honestly, probably 75% of the time, they're still a person. They've spent a million dollars on this machine, and it still requires some kind of human elements because people don't know how to work something as simple as a parking machine. So when it comes to language, and there's so much nuance with that, and deciphering simultaneous talking, and accents, I mean, it's just there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes, not only in the taking down of it, but after the fact, the transcription and making sure we got it all and the speakers are all correct. I mean, that makes a huge difference. If I attribute something to you're having said it as opposed to someone else, oops, that could be a big no-no.

Tim Kowal That is a big one. Yeah, when you were running down the list of all the things that could go wrong, it's when there are many speakers, getting an accurate transcription almost requires, I think you'd probably prefer when everyone speaks up or starts talking to announce that, okay, Tim Kowal is talking now for the standpoint of the record, especially when it's like a Zoom meeting, a virtual appearance or a telephonic appearance. I can guess those can be extra frustrating.

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, before Zoom, we had those telephonics and yeah, it could be, if it was a male and a female, great, I can tell the difference or something distinguishable between two males. But yeah, sometimes it is difficult to decipher who's speaking and that makes a difference.

Tim Kowal Well, tell us a little bit about Regal Court Reporting. You and Isaiah have been running it for 19 or 20 years. What?

Stephanie Leslie Almost 19, yeah. I mean, we started off as a little baby. Had five clients branched off on my own and ran it out of our spare bedroom. Just slowly built it up and just word of mouth and referral. And now we're a good size firm. One of the few reporter-owned firms left standing that haven't been acquired by big bucks corporations. So we pride ourselves on that and we've just kind of tried to do the right thing all along and hopefully that shines through in the quality of our work.

Tim Kowal What makes you different as a reporter-owned firm? How is that different from a firm that is just, it's just got an operation and they coordinate with court reporters to show up at your proceeding? How is it different when you are helping running the show as a working court reporter?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, well, behind the scenes, I think one of the greatest things about it is that my reporters can call me, text me, email me, and they get an answer from another licensee who knows the rules, who knows how to do it. I'm in the trenches still reporting to this day. And so I think that training, that hands-on quality of care really translates into them. So I'm basically trying to duplicate myself, right? And also, I just care about the profession. I care about the product. It's not bottom line and shareholders that I'm trying to impress. I'm literally trying to make a record that, to your point, can be brought to an appeal or whatnot. And a lot of our bigger competitors, like I mentioned, they offer alternatives to a licensed stenographer. And maybe they're doing it out of necessity, maybe not. But it feels like we're trying to be replaced from that angle as well, not just in the courtroom, but also in depositions. And what makes a difference is I care.

Tim Kowal I had a question based on a recent experience, and actually now I have had this experience a couple of times with, not with Regal, but with other firms, because as an appellate attorney, often I come in after the trial. And so I had no opportunity to recommend that the trial attorney should hire Regal. But I wonder if this is more standard to maybe I just I'm late in having this experience where under the rules, when you designate the appellate record, the deposit fees are set by the Judicial Council at I think it's three hundred twenty five dollars for a partial day and six hundred fifty dollars to transcribe a full day. And I had always kind of assumed that that was the fee. You pay that fee and you're done with court reporter fees, but now in two recent occasions I've had the court reporter come back to me and say, actually, it's going to be more than that. And I said, well, I posted the fee required by the rule of court. Why is it going to be more? And they said, well, that's just an estimate. But my fee is going to be more. Do you see that? Is that normal? I'll ask it that way.

Stephanie Leslie Well, to start at the base of this, it is based on pages. And so those are estimates, but we are supposed to, if you're putting a deposit down with the court, we are supposed to confirm within a week or two of us getting that notice to say, yes, that's accurate. That will cover the fees or no, we need to ask for more. And so if you are putting that deposit down with the court, it should all be handled through the court. If someone is coming to you independently on the side and saying, no, I mean more, that may be outside of the government regulated page rate. And I have heard of reporters charging above what they are allowed to, which is shameful and I wish didn't happen. And what's really interesting is the, we'll get into this I'm sure in a moment, but there's a lot of privatization of court reporting in the courts now. So there isn't necessarily a county employee covering every courtroom, right? And as a result, an agency will send a reporter. And so there's obviously the agency has to make some kind of markup or fee on top of that. But when it comes to allowable page rates, there is a government code that caps the page rate. So we don't get a cut of that at all. So it all goes to the reporter. So if they want more or they're doing this on the side, we may not even know about it. I mean, it shouldn't happen. But the fee structure is insane to keep up with. It's folios and how many folios per page. It's really, so I think people get away with it because no one can figure out what Norley means. I don't know.

Tim Kowal Well, here's the other side of that rule of court when the transcript has already been transcribed and all you need now is the appellate version, which presumably is just a new cover page, new index and pagination. There's a separate fee for that. But I had another occasion not that long ago where it was one of the big guys and they came at us with a what I thought to be an exorbitant amount of money for a transcript that had already been prepared. It just needed to be put into the appellate format. So I won't say who or what the exorbitant fee was, but it was exorbitant. But I was curious because I don't know what goes into taking an already transcribed transcript and just preparing it make it a court of appeal ready. Is there real work, substantive work that goes on or a lot of... You have to really know Adobe Acrobat to put it together. What goes into preparing it?

Stephanie Leslie So we have our court reporting software, yeah, it's a matter of just setting up. Yeah, the pages are, I mean, the cover pages are strange and you do have to follow the guidelines. So it's comparing, it's looking up what the rules are for that county, because every county is different. How many lines per page, how many, and where the page, I mean, it's so nitpicky about the page number needs to go on the top right or the bottom right. And add a box around it and then the index changes. So it's just formatting. It's just minutiae that's annoying. That's all it is. It takes us away from our normal kind of workflow of transcripts that are going along. Like I have three sitting on my desk right now and I'm just procrastinating because I hate doing them even though they were previously transcribed. So it's just more annoying than anything. But no, they should not be charging exorbitant rates.

Tim Kowal I had, I think earlier on in my appellate career, I had the rules of court in front of me and I was scrutinizing the appellate transcript that had just been prepared and sent to me by the court reporter. And I had a back and forth email exchange that, well, this isn't quite according to the rule. And the court reporter said, I have sent dozens or hundreds of these to the court of appeal and never had a problem. And finally, I had to just relent because I wasn't getting anywhere. And we didn't have a problem with the court of appeal, but I wonder if that's common among, you know, court reporters are, are your court reporters at Regal independent contractors or employees?

Stephanie Leslie They're independent contractors, yes, which is a blessing and a curse, right? Because you'd have less control. And if they want to do it how they want to do it, it's difficult to force the issue, to your point.

Tim Kowal I think that's the norm. Aren't all, just about all court reporters independent contractors?

Stephanie Leslie Yes. And part of the reason for that, I believe, is because we have our own equipment, we make our own hours, and it is flexible. As opposed to if you're in court, you're an official with the courts, they do employ you.

Tim Kowal So if you are an independent court reporter, are you happier working at Regal than you would at another agency?

Stephanie Leslie That's my goal. I want everyone to want to work for me. And so I get the best, you know, the top picks. And I think that's where all that comes in of trying to be an agency that cares and that they can call me directly because then I do attract the better reporters. And as a result, my clients are happier because they get a better transcript, etcetera. So that's the goal for sure.

Tim Kowal So Regal having been around for nearly 20 years, that's a long time you've seen a lot of the facets of the court reporter. It's been referred to as a crisis, which has been going on, I think, about the last 20 years, and maybe more than that, where there's been a downturn in the number of new court reporters that are taking up the profession and an uptick in retirements. Can you give me your perspective on from what you've seen from the inside of the profession and maybe some of your reasons why that might be happening?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, I think it's a confluence of several things. Number one, it's a very nuanced career. It's a very niche career that when I was going to school, I didn't see court reporters coming to the career fairs. I saw doctors and teachers and firemen. So no one knew about it for the longest time. And if I hadn't stumbled upon it and had it and happened to have an aunt who was a court reporter, I would have never known about it either. And then the very few times that we are given exposure, like on a TV show or on a movie, often you see a little old lady with a bun tied up in an old green machine, like avocado green with ticker tape coming out, and it just looks like this antiquated, like, why would I ever want to do that? That looks like the lamest career ever, I mean, to be real, it's not that attractive if you don't know really how fun it can be. So that's part of it. And for a long time, like when I started, there was a need for more reporters, but nothing like it evolved into. And we all kind of liked it because it was just, we had enough work. We had as much work as we wanted. And so I don't think anybody was really seeing the way of coming of retirees and all of that. And I was warned by our lobbyist and attorney for our association. And he said, look, if you guys don't do something, you got five years, this is coming. And we said, no, no, until they try to replace us, we're not going to have enough reporters, etcetera. I don't know. And we said, you're being dramatic, whatever. And sure enough, it has become a bit of a crisis. And so we had to kick it into gear. And there are several things we've been doing to try to, I don't know if you want to, how far you want me to go down this road. But basically we...

Tim Kowal You got five years until what?

Stephanie Leslie Realized, shoot, we need more reporters. Yes. And so our associations, so obviously I have my experience with one of our state associations, but nationally, reporters have taken to TikTok and taken to cool mediums that attract. That's where kids find out about things now. I mean, there are still career fairs and I still go to them and I try to get a lot of our members to go to them. And we bring our machine and we say, hey, how cool is this? And do you text? And do you play video games? This is similar. It's like a short code. And so we're trying to make it relevant. And it's really, really working. We have lots of people in school. We have wait lists to our schools. And that isn't being talked about so much. We do have a huge wave of reporters coming up and a lot of new licensees every year.

Tim Kowal You're right. I have not heard about that. The last I was looking into this was a couple of years ago. I was doing some research for an article that I published in 2024. All the research that I had seen was showing the downturn and the lower graduation rates of these schools that do the training. And that the training is pretty involved. It's pretty onerous. And the test is very difficult to pass. I like your explanation. That does seem to ring true, especially in the, just in the last year, really year, 18 months, two years, young people are getting very nervous about AI taking over jobs, especially entry level jobs, because those have been replaced by AI. As an attorney, I'm concerned, many attorneys are concerned about how new attorneys are going to get the experience to become seasoned attorneys when a lot of those junior associate level tasks are going to be farmed out to AI. So that's a problem. But yeah, you mentioned that the shorthand language is a little bit different. It's kind of like learning how to communicate with emojis, I guess in a sense. So that is tracking with the TikTok generation is starting to respond to those efforts.

Stephanie Leslie Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, we have some viral court reporters that have become popular. And so now when you Google it, you don't just get all the negative press about this is an obsolete career. You see the potential. And people are sharing like reporters like going to court. And they're like, hey, this is my day. And here's my machine. And here's what I get to listen in on. So we're trying to give them a day in the life inside. You did mention the schooling process. May I touch on that? So you're right. So traditionally in California, a court reporter has a steno machine, right? And not avocado green anymore, but we do have a steno machine. And so we have this shorthand way of typing and it's an entirely new language. And so learning that is challenging and then getting up to speed is challenging and passing that dang test that has a lower pass rate than the bar.

Tim Kowal Please do.

Stephanie Leslie But so that has been a challenge and it's traditionally, it's about a three year program. So you could become an attorney, go to law school or you could become a court reporter. I did it in two. Some people have done it in less than two, but it can be two to four or five. And so that we realized was a big problem because it was, there were a lot of people in school that couldn't get out, let's say, or they see that, that there it's going to take three years and they say, forget it. I can't do that. So there is a method. Both, yeah, you can do full-time or part-time. So what I was referencing is full-time timelines. So if you do part-time, of course, it does take longer. But nationally, there has always been, since World War II, there's always been something called voice writing with a steno mask. And I don't know if you're familiar with this, but...

Tim Kowal Is it a full-time program? The three-year program is full-time? I wanted to ask you about the voice writing. That was in 2022. I believe that bill was authorized, that bill was passed in the California legislature.

Stephanie Leslie Yes. So that's when, at the end of 22 is when it was actually passed. And then so 23 is when programs were starting up, like how do we teach this in California? Because we don't have a lot of experienced voice writers yet, right? So it really took a good year or even two to get it off the ground. And now we're seeing the fruits of that. And that's the, I would say the majority of the court reporters coming out of school now are voice writers. And the beauty of this program is they can get through school much faster, like a year or less. So because they already know the language, they already know English. So they're repeating back in mostly English, but also some shorthand codes to identify speakers and whatnot. But it has really, really helped the squeeze and gotten a lot of people into schools and caused an interest again, because it's much more achievable.

Tim Kowal Does Regal use voice writers in addition to, what do you call it, stenographers?

Stephanie Leslie We do. We do. And there has been a little bit of reluctance because it's something new and they're like, what is that? Are you licensed or are you just a digital or what is this funky mask thing you're wearing? So it does take a bit of education for our clients. And some firms don't want to do that or don't want to ruffle feathers. They just like the status quo. The attorneys do. But we see that it's very, very important to make sure that we are able to provide reporters to give you all appellate records.

Tim Kowal You mentioned ruffling feathers or it's new, but do voice writers experience any trouble with courts or staff when they're transcribing using the voice writing technology?

Stephanie Leslie Yes, they have somewhat. Although a lot of times attorneys are just so into, they're doing their thing and they don't even look at us. They don't know what we're doing. And as long as there's a transcript at the end, they don't care. But sometimes they are used as a bit of a pawn in the gamesmanship. If attorneys aren't getting along, they might use that as, I object to this or, you know, and just, just as a ploy to postpone the depo. So I think that's one of the fears and of causing the ruffling of feathers.

Tim Kowal When I read the new law or at least the description of it is that voice writers are considered for all intents and purposes to be certified shorthand reporters. So it doesn't matter if they're using a stenographer or the mask. They are authorized.

Stephanie Leslie Correct. And they have to take the exact same test that we do. So it is the same standard. It's just a different input and method.

Tim Kowal What is the test like, by the way? Is it just you are listening to something like the audio of a court proceeding and you just have to accurately transcribe it?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, so when I took it back in my day, so many years ago, it was in person before all of this remote and Zoom and everything. So we would all fly in to wherever, LA or San Francisco or wherever, and at a hotel, and there would be a hundred something people at a hotel. And we would take, this is the skills portion. So we called the machine portion. And it was a 12 minute with four live speakers up on a table, 12 minutes, do or die. If you get nervous and freeze, you're toast, and it's at 200 words per minute. And that's the skills portion. And there's also a knowledge portion. Heavy English, as you can imagine, and medical legal, as well as procedures like codes and what our responsibilities are and all of that. And so now we still currently have a 10 minute, 10 to 12 minute test. It is, I believe pre-recorded because it's on a remote platform. But they're talking about switching to a five minute of a faster speed to match the national standard, which is 225, but I'm in the weeds here, but basically it's like a skills go and you have to get 97 point. Well, they just changed it to 95. 95% accuracy. And that includes every comma, every speaker, every word, everything.

Tim Kowal Yeah, I had my former partner, I think, prided himself on taxing every court reporter's words per minute limit. He would give their fingers a workout. Do the voice writers have any trouble when they have to announce to the court that I didn't catch that or counsel you're speaking too quickly? Do they have to take the mask off in order to communicate?

Stephanie Leslie We love those. We love those. That's a great question. Yes, they do. Although I have trouble, even though I'm not using my mouth, I have trouble typing and speaking at the same time because it's, I'm like short circuiting. So I think it's probably the same difficulty level. I don't know. I haven't been a voice writer yet. We'll see. Someday maybe.

Tim Kowal Well, I'm pleased to hear that the recruitment efforts look like they are promising. When will those efforts be seen in the number of active court reporters?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, that's the big question. I mean, we still, our numbers still skew older. So it all depends on when everyone decides to retire. I believe we're still skewed. The majority of us are over 50. So we have a pipeline we have to replace for sure. And that's why we're working hard at doing that. But I don't know the actual projections. I think there are a lot of factors that tie into that. So I'm not quite sure. The trick is getting this court staffed again, because I understand that's probably your listenership's biggest concern. I don't know, maybe depositions also play into that. But we're working on it, and I have ideas, and we're hit with some obstacles along the way. So I don't know how much you want to get into that.

Tim Kowal Well, let me before we go further, let me just back up to another question I just remembered about in the practice of court reporting and the difficulties you experience in the moment in court proceedings. And as you mentioned during the test, if you freeze, you die. But what happens during, are you in again in your long career of being a working court reporter? Are there more English as a second language litigants and witnesses, making it difficult for court reporters to take down accurate testimony?

Stephanie Leslie Well, I mean, if you're talking about accents, it does pose a challenge, but I don't know that there's any more now than there used to be. I mean, you have some very educated doctors who just happen to have Indian accents and they're speaking in medical terminology and it's a challenge up and down and there's no way of getting around that. So that's, I would be so curious to put the voice recognition and AI up against us in those scenarios because I mean, I think it'd be difficult for anybody and when you have the human element and you may know the case already or you may have been given a notice and you look ahead or look up the case. I suppose we can do a little more homework than a computer, but I don't know. It's challenging, but I can stop and say, wait, wait, what? What was that? Excuse me. Can you repeat?

Tim Kowal Well, yeah, and it's not only the witnesses, but when translators have a thick English accent, actually, that was one of the more painful depositions I've sat through is where the court reporter was trying to understand what the translator was saying with a very heavy accent. And I wonder if when you are placing jobs, do you ask if there will be accents in heavy use and do you have court reporters who have a profile that are very tuned to certain accents and some that are have trouble with accents?

Stephanie Leslie That's a really great question and suggestion. I don't typically. Part of the problem, I think, is sometimes we're told a certain attorney will be taking the depo and then they may change it at the last minute because attorney's schedules are crazy with, we have to go in for an ex parte hearing so that attorney is no longer available and this other one on the team is going to be taking it. So it's not always reliable who's going to be the actual taking attorney, first of all. And then trying to get information from opposing counsel is probably even harder, I don't know, since we don't have direct contact with them. But I do, I can tell you, I have a reporter who struggles with accents big time and I will never put her on an interpretive one or anything that, any witness name that looks too, I mean, you never can tell, right? You can have a very exotic sounding name and have zero accent, but we try our best to keep her off of those. That's true.

Tim Kowal Yeah, yeah, like I said, this particular court reporter did fine the rest of the day, but whenever he was trying to understand what the translator was saying, the translator had a particularly heavy accent. And even when I could understand him perfectly well, the court reporter still couldn't seem to understand. And I thought maybe that's a poor fit.

Stephanie Leslie That's a good point. Yeah. And we're coming in cold sometimes too. So I don't know the context as well as you do having been familiar with the case. So maybe if they say a name or a street name or something that doesn't resonate with me, but you already know it's coming. I mean, maybe that's part of it, but you're right that we all have our strengths, right?

Tim Kowal Yeah. Well, and getting back to if you were going to try to use AI and record a conversation, AI doesn't necessarily know, probably can't rate its confidence in certain words. And it just thinks that it's got this word, but it's totally wrong or it knows the speaker, but it's totally wrong. And that can be hard to sort out. Whereas the court reporter can, but what are you doing on your machine? You have a button to flag certain words, I need to come back to that and confirm.

Stephanie Leslie Yes. Yes. I have a little check button where I, if they rattled off a number and I want to make sure I got it accurate or I may have missed a word, but it wasn't worth stopping. Or I have little spelling code if there's a name that I just need to get the spelling for at a break or at the end. Yeah. You're very intuitive to what we do.

Tim Kowal Well, we have to spend a lot of time in these transcripts, and so we have to guess at what might go into them.

Stephanie Leslie Oh, one thing I wanted to mention, if I could, you were mentioning, you wonder how AI would do if it weren't attuned to that. And there are studies, I don't know if you're familiar with this, but the accuracy, whenever they tout, oh, it's 90% accurate, 95% accurate, it's usually, first of all, like we mentioned, one voice clearly speaking into the mic or whatever, but it's usually white males. And they have a hard time with minority accents and things, and that has been proven. So really talk about justice and fairness in appellate work or in courts. And if you have a litigant who's indigent or has those things, you don't want them to be at a disadvantage because it's inferior product. I meant to mention that.

Tim Kowal Yeah, and speaking of that, what are some of the other nuances that are allowed to be transcribed? I think, I'm trying to remember, have I seen the word like Sotto Voce or whispering in transcripts? When is that appropriate or required to be reported in the transcript?

Stephanie Leslie Yes. Yeah, I do use that if they're whispering and just so it says what happened without me, what is the word, elaborating or editorializing. I'm not supposed to editorialize like if you laugh or if you yell or if you whatever. But if their words spoke, no, no. But if it's words that were spoken that I couldn't hear, I feel like that's...

Tim Kowal Is laughter not reported? If there's laughter in the... I didn't realize that.

Stephanie Leslie It might need to be set, especially if it's between an attorney and their witness in between questions. I feel like that's relevant.

Tim Kowal I think I recall the rule, tell me if this is the right rule, for example, if the client is speaking to his or her attorney, but says it out loud, where the court reporter can hear, then even though that it's an attorney-client communication, if you can hear it, you're supposed to transcribe it. Is that right?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, yeah, I mean that's on them to not speak so loudly or not in the room with me or whatever. Yeah, and they know we're on the record. I mean, that's on them.

Tim Kowal Yeah, that's right. Is there a mechanism by which if it was obviously intended to be a privileged communication and they didn't intend to speak so loudly that you could hear, maybe the court reporter just has extraordinary hearing. Is there a way that you can, I guess the request would have to go to the court and then the court would have to order it.

Stephanie Leslie Well, in a private setting, so in a deposition or something, I generally go by the rule of if everyone agrees. Like let's say a witness says their social security number and they meant to have that off the record. As long as everyone agrees, there's stipulation, I'm fine taking it out. I don't know if every reporter would because technically we took it down. But yeah, I don't know about court though. Probably the judge would be the rule on that.

Tim Kowal I wanted to get your take on this pending case in front of the California Supreme Court, the Family Violence Appellate Project versus the Superior Court. I can't recall, did California Deposition Reporters Association file a brief in this case?

Stephanie Leslie Yes. So it's a very interesting case, and I don't know all the nuance, but I know that there's not really a true defendant because they were trying to sue the legislature or something. And so our side, the two associations basically kind of got together with the help of our counsel and filed an amic, a amicus, amicus brief, amici. I don't know what the pluralism of that, but I actually was one of the ones, because I was president at the time, and I submitted a declaration. So that is attached to the amicus brief.

Tim Kowal Let me read for the audience the issue presented in this case. The issue is, does the prohibition on electronic recording of certain proceedings in government code section 69957 subdivision A violate the California Constitution when an official court reporter is unavailable and a litigant cannot afford to pay a private court reporter? So that's the issue before the California Supreme Court right now. Are you able to summarize the California Deposition Reporters Association's position on that case or on that issue?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, I mean, first of all, I believe every county has fee waiver capabilities. So that should take care of if someone cannot afford a private court reporter. And because I know now that everything's privatized in civil, it's not cheap. And I completely feel for litigants who need to hire our services. I get that. But there is a mechanism with the fee waiver for those indigent litigants who can apply for that. Our big issue is this problem was originally caused by layoffs from budget cuts. The court started laying off court reporters en masse in 2012. And it has created sort of a privatized economy, which has skewed rates and availabilities. And now there's not a guarantee that a court reporter will be available in every courtroom. So not that we need to point fingers and place blame, but I feel like often the reporters are the ones having to defend ourselves when really we didn't create the problem. So I'll just say that just to start. And so that's part of it. And secondly, going back to your one of your original questions of why there is a shortage at all. And the fact, and I think this adds up math wise, if you're saying it started around 10 years ago. I mean, if the counties and the judicial system are laying off reporters and you're contemplating going into court reporting school, I mean, that doesn't sound very promising of a career, right? Are they being replaced? There's not going to be a job for me. Shoot, I'm not going to go to school. So that contributed to the problem as well.

Tim Kowal I see what you're saying. Even if you accept the premise that we're in a crisis and, whatever word you want to choose to name it, but there is a downturn and there is reason for some optimism, but we currently do have a shortage. So if you accept the premise that we're in a shortage and then you implement a measure that is going to send a chilling effect to new entrants of the profession, you've just kind of institutionalized and entrenched the crisis.

Stephanie Leslie You're exactly right. You said it much better than I could have. Yes. So that is where we are at a crossroads. So replacing us, we don't see being a solution that is helpful long term. Asking for help, and that was, I don't know if you're aware, but I went up and spoke. Oh yeah, you said this in your intro that I testified in front of the Senate judiciary to say, hey, we need some help. Because I was just looking this up earlier today because I feel like other career paths, for example, nursing or trades, they're also in shortages. There's a systemic kind of problem. And let me tell you some numbers I just found out. So there's a projected shortfall of registered nurses of over 60,000 in California by the year 2033. So what is the government doing? They're actually helping. They have a multi-pronged approach focused on expanding educational capacity, providing financial incentives, improving retention. So they're helping. Also with the trades as of April, 2026, so just last month, California is investing $37 million in new apprenticeship and workforce training programs for the trades. They can help. The legislation can help the judiciary, the attorneys, the judges, whoever. And I'm not saying we're not willing to do our part, but it has fallen all on us. And so we're doing lots of grassroots. We're doing what we can, but we're kind of small and mighty. And we're trying to get the numbers up and it's working, and with the voice writers coming through. But I forget your original question.

Tim Kowal Well, yeah, I was mostly just making an observation about the court needs to be careful about what solution it implements and is it going to make the problem worse? And is it just going to be just picking the winner and loser if we're framing the issue as, well, court reporters are not getting the job done in terms of replenishing the numbers and AI and technology might present an alternative. So let's just go out with court reporters and come in with all technology. It's going to be all one or all the other if they're not careful.

Stephanie Leslie That's what it feels like. Yes. And I have yet to hear anyone deny the fact that we are the gold standard. Every single person says, well, yeah, a licensed stenographer in the seat is way better than AI. But I also see the point of if you don't have anything, if you're not able to secure a reporter, I get it. I mean, you need something. You need an appellate transcript. But do we want to encourage the inferior product? And then the other thing is implementing these, this machinery, because these huge black boxes, because LA already has done this. So I see the equipment sitting there not being used. It's millions and millions of dollars and tomorrow it becomes obsolete. It's almost like driving a new car off the road. I mean, technology has to be continually upkept and it doesn't seem like a long-term feasible solution. I don't know. And it's inferior. We already know it's inferior. So if we could put those dollars to recruiting and doing things that would actually help us get more licensees, we think that's the solution.

Tim Kowal Tell me about some of the maybe compromise or hybrid solutions. I can anticipate some of what you might say, but for example, I think in the federal system, in federal courts, they will record all the proceedings. And if a transcript is needed, I believe the court reporter will listen to the transcripts and create the transcripts from the electronic recordings. Tell me about your observations and your opinions about that approach.

Stephanie Leslie Well, first of all, federal, as you're probably aware, has the best equipment. So I believe that their recordings are probably way higher quality than we would ever get on the state level. However, because an argument could be made that state could supplant what they have and get higher quality. But this goes back to my analogy of the website person behind the scenes. I can tell you from personal experience, transcribing pre-recorded anything is the absolute pits. Trying to figure out who was speaking by listening to the tenor of their voice or, and something bangs on the table. I don't know if you've ever seen one of those transcripts, but there's a lot of inaudibles, indecipherables, and you miss stuff. So, I mean, it's an alternative, but it's not as good. I don't know.

Tim Kowal Does the electronic recordings from the state of the art federal courtrooms, do they tell you which from which microphone the audio is derived and that can maybe help you pinpoint who's speaking at the particular moment?

Stephanie Leslie I don't know the answer to that question because I believe that they have them transcribed by, I don't know, someone else. I've never done federal. I just know that the equipment is always better there. So I don't know. That would obviously help a lot. So that's an idea.

Tim Kowal Yeah, it's kind of like, as you say, the technology, a lot depends on the technology and is it the latest and greatest technology? My wife and I are kind of pricing out the new self-driving Teslas because it's getting harder and harder owning a law firm and then taking the kids to all their different programs. And I've got work to do, so the prospect of being able to do work in the car while I'm sitting behind the wheel in Tesla's steering for me is pretty attractive. But it's still supervised self-driving. It'll keep bugging you to keep your eyes on the road in case you have to take over in case Tesla decides that where you want to go is off this cliff. But in 18 months, they're going to have the next version of it where it will be full unsupervised. So maybe it could be a similar conversation that maybe at some hypothetical future, the technology will be so good that we can have the conversation, but it can be very difficult to... We can't still reach the gold standard is I think you're right. I don't think anyone disagrees that it is the gold standard. I think the question is should there be an alternative in those situations and I read the issue before the court in the Family Violence Appellate Project versus Superior Court. I'm not sure why they didn't frame it as is the prohibition on electronic recordings, does it violate the Constitution when a court reporter is unavailable, full stop? You know, when there actually is, you've worked the phones, you've called every court reporter around and no one is available to come transcribe, then it seems that there should be an alternative available. But is that simply not the issue before the court?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, and I don't know that level of detail because now it's kind of gone by the wayside for now. I do know this, that for whatever reason, and this is debatable, but it seems that there isn't a lot of support from the administration in courtrooms, counties, and courthouses. I think if the people that were utilizing a court reporter services, so the attorneys, the judges who understand how important it is and see the difference. If they were the ones making the call, I would trust that they would do everything they could to make sure that there was a reporter available. The things that I have seen put that onus on the courts or the judicial council or the whatever, the admin. And there has been a lot of mistrust. It seems like they don't care about keeping us around. And I'm not even saying this because I'm not even in the union. I don't even, I'm so far removed from that. I know personally of a lot of voice writers who are excited to join the courts and they have applied and they are qualified. They've passed the test and they've not gotten the job. And I almost feel like maybe it's a political thing. Like they want to keep a shortage for some reason so that they can replace? I don't know. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, but it doesn't seem like they're very eager to help us out with the problem. So for us to rely on this, making sure that they have made all the calls and that they have done their due diligence, there's not a lot of faith in that, I guess is what I'm saying.

Tim Kowal My experience has been that despite the shortage, I haven't been in a situation where I've not been able to find a court reporter. I call Regal and you've always got a court reporter available for us, even if we've waited until the day before the hearing. But I imagine that the pinch is being felt in those family law departments or probate departments where there's hearings going on all the time. And you never know if that's the one that's gonna need to be transcribed. So it's probably the indigent litigants who simply can't afford to just have a court reporter there just in case they're eventually gonna need to appeal, even if they had that on their minds. They're hoping that the judge is just going to do right by them and this is all gonna go in their favor on that day. And appeal is the furthest things from their mind. I imagine that's where the pinch is being felt. Is that your assessment?

Stephanie Leslie Yes. And I believe that's why this is the plaintiff, the family law. And that's where we've heard the most complaints and had the most pressure from. And I completely get it because there's a huge number. I think the majority of people represent themselves. And if they can't afford to hire an attorney, why would they want to spend money on a court reporter? I completely get that. The good news is because of this being the pinch and the crux of it, the courts are putting people in those courtrooms first. So Orange County, I don't know if you're familiar, but they are fully staffed in criminal, in family law, I believe in probate as well, and they're starting to repopulate all the civil. Because they are actually very pro reporter, and so they're hiring people when they're applying.

Tim Kowal Is that a function of court resources or is it also a function of where court reporters happen to reside?

Stephanie Leslie Well, that's a good point. There are a lot more reporters in Orange County and Riverside as opposed to LA. But I know of several that have applied to LA and haven't gotten it. So I'm not sure quite why. So, but I do know that getting back on track that family law is the first place they're putting reporters. So that's good. And if I may just take us on a little tangent, because now there's not a guarantee of a reporter. And you mentioned calendar days, right? So there could be 10 to 30. I was number 31 the other day on someone's calendar, all to be called at the same time, allegedly. So it's kind of a mess, right? The matter number two may have hired a reporter. Matter number six hired a reporter and there's three court reporters sitting in this courtroom. It is so frustrating. It's so frustrating because it's not a great use of resources. So I feel like if there were more collaboration, we could come up with a system where, hey, we only have this many court reporters to go around, but if you're going to hire somebody, let's talk. People have to talk. And we did try at the DRA, we implemented a new law, AB 711, to prevent duplication on individual matters. So at least both sides have to talk and see if they're bringing a reporter. So at least there won't be two in the same matter, but that only solves it so far. So anyway.

Tim Kowal I admit to being an offender of that. Before AB 711, I had that experience where we brought a court reporter and the other side had a court reporter and I thought, and there's a crisis going on, I'm guilty. So we just had a...

Stephanie Leslie I'm glad that you're at least aware of it. I mean, we're trying to solve the problem, but it takes a lot of coordination and with the courts to try to make that happen. And if it's a money thing, this is my big idea. If it's a money thing, because I understand the budget cuts and whatnot, then I feel like litigants have to pay jury fees for every day that they're using a jury. Hey, what if they just paid the court reporter fees and that it's a wash, but at least they know they're getting someone guaranteed in there and it's not the privatized prices. And I mean, I don't know. There are ways to solve this if we could get a little, a little help.

Tim Kowal Did you mention this a couple minutes ago that if you're on a matter and you have a court reporter waiting in the courtroom or even just waiting in the Zoom room, will the court give you preference if you have a court reporter bump you to the front of the line?

Stephanie Leslie Not to my knowledge, my experience has been that if a party or an attorney hires you, a court reporter, usually that means they do know they're going to need it or it is a bigger matter. And so those often the courts will save for the end because they're going to be longer arguments and whatnot. So I find myself sitting around for long periods of time waiting, but I wish that were the case.

Tim Kowal Do you think there would be any appetite for making a pitch to judges and their staff to bump those cases with court reporters to the front of the line to free up those resources?

Stephanie Leslie Yes. Well, they do that with interpreters. They're like, we have an interpreter. Let's take that matter first so he can be released to go to the Southern department. I mean, yeah, that's great.

Tim Kowal Yeah, or put you to second call. I don't know if that actually frees up the resources. I guess the court reporter wouldn't be able to go take another job in that hour or two interim.

Stephanie Leslie Well, I mean, some of these hearings are so short. And if we're at Stanley Mosk and there's hundreds of courtrooms, I could pop over to one, take a 20-minute hearing. Yeah, if they'll work with us, that would be amazing. I think that there is a solution out there, and there's ways to do it. And replacing us just doesn't seem like the best one for anyone. But that's my perspective.

Tim Kowal So as we start to wrap up here, what do you think the California Supreme Court should do with the FVAP versus Superior Court action? If you had 30 seconds trapped in an elevator with the Supreme Court justices, what would you tell them?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, I mean, my big thing is if there's a shortage of something, we should make a serious effort to try to increase the supply of that, not just to replace it. I don't think that's the answer to everything. The hype, and I don't know this is in the legal field, but the hype of AI and it's so cool and new technology. I think that we just assume it's going to be great or replace or do a good job and understanding. That's why I appreciated you asking about how, what our job entails in the backend. Because understanding that a lot more goes into it, I think is helpful. So I guess education for that.

Tim Kowal Yeah, there's already so many resources that are not being made available. There's so many judges in family law, for example, that are not getting the resources that they need. I know in Orange County, actually, we have, we're going to have a guest coming in, I think, next month or in July. Lisa McCall was telling me about the unique problems the family law panel has because they cannot keep judges because their workload is so great because of the way that they count workload among all the panels. They spread out the case numbers across the judges so they have more or less equal case numbers on their docket. But in family law cases, they go on almost indefinitely and there are just so many RFOs after RFO after RFO and multiple trials and judgments and appealable orders that one case number will go on the equivalent of three regular civil case numbers. But they won't reallocate the way that they allocate the workload. And so you have these entrenched problems. And so my point being that if they can't, whoever it is that decides how much money to send down to these courts, can't figure out how to get more family law judges to handle its caseload, who's to say that they're gonna be able to fund all of the technology that would be needed to get even close to the gold standard that the court reporters are providing. And then on top of that, to make sure that there is an ongoing budget to keep it elevating to fix all the problems that come out in the first year of operation and then the next year of operation and so on. So I think it would be, you would just be buying a whole new nest of problems if you were to just, and I'm not taking a position. I'm always optimistic about technology and I'm always interested in what technology can solve for us, but usually try to find ways to get humans and technology working together so that the human output is improved, not replaced.

Stephanie Leslie Yes, yes. Well, speaking of that, we recently, we're trying to help a software company that we work with to, on the backend, help us quality control and check grammar, do a skim and check and make sure page counts and the pages stack up, all those little nuanced things I was telling you that just take time. And so if we can have that automated on the backend and it would free us up to take more work, I'm with you on the partnership between technology and humans, but taking out the human entirely is just scary, usually.

Tim Kowal Yeah, yeah, I think it is. And I think that in our profession, the legal profession, broadly speaking, there is enough, sometimes we complain about protectionism, but I think the protectionism can protect not only the insiders in the industry, but also make sure that the industry continues to function as expected. And if we just suddenly make a hard pivot, and replace what humans have been doing with machines. Yes, you'd probably see big differences, maybe initially in price, maybe initially in speed of the output, but in the quality of the output. I think your mileage is going to vary greatly and we need to be watching closely because with the justice system, justice system is a poor area for trial and error.

Stephanie Leslie Well said, yes.

Tim Kowal Okay, so a few lightning round questions. If I'm a trial attorney, what's one thing I should be doing right now to make sure I have a reporter when I need one? Should I be calling Regal far in advance? As I mentioned, sometimes I wait until the last day, but I'm always nervous that I may be too late. But knock on wood, it hasn't happened yet.

Stephanie Leslie Good. And I'm so glad you shared that, just as an aside. This is a very lightning round-esque. But I have very, very, very few instances where we were not able to cover a job, too. So I'm glad that you haven't personally experienced what people are complaining about. That's great. Okay. So yes, scheduling in advance is huge. Giving us as much information as possible. I know everyone's busy, but giving us a notice with all the details and the spellings that helps us be able to create a record quickly for you.

Tim Kowal Would you recommend giving that to the reporter ahead of time? I'm going to be referring to Mr. Claude McDonald or something.

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, anything, especially if you're wanting real time or roughs, anything where we might need to, it's going to take some time to look up all those names. Or if it's a medical, heavy medical, if you can give us terms in advance that we can expect, that makes things go smoothly. Yeah.

Tim Kowal What are some best practices for getting a clean record on a long cause hearing or trial? And maybe one example that I see a lot after a multi-day trial is we're putting together the designation of record on appeal and there's 10 days of trial and there's six court reporters. There's a different reporter almost every day. I take it that's to be avoided. Does Regal try to make sure that if there's a long cause trial, you get the same reporter every day?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, as possible. If it's a heavy one where they're ordering dailies, it is a difficult task to take that on yourself. So sometimes reporters will intentionally split it. And I take the morning, you take the afternoon so they can be working on the transcript. And for example, I just filled in on a trial yesterday because our reporter needed a day off. So we did institute some discontinuity. But yes, we do try to keep the same one for sure. If I may say one more thing, if you're going to need that transcript, not waiting till the end to let us know is really helpful. So we can get our editors starting on it or be working on it at night instead of at the very end going, shoot, I lost. I mean, sometimes you don't know, right? But to give us a heads up what you might need in advance. Yeah.

Tim Kowal Okay, got it. That's why you're always asking early, because usually I don't have the answer.

Stephanie Leslie I know, I know. It's impossible sometimes for you to know, but if you do have an inkling, that would be helpful.

Tim Kowal What's the fastest way for an attorney to lose the reporter's goodwill?

Stephanie Leslie Well, like your partner, maybe the fast talking and proud of it, you know. The normal things like breaks and getting us what we need. Exhibits, sometimes now with Zoom, it's a challenge to track down the exhibits after because you haven't just handed them to us and we have to email you and you're busy. Just being kind, like most of our reporters say, you guys have the nicest clients. And so they want to work for us for that reason. But we have a couple that are just difficult. If you had your choice, you wouldn't want to work with someone like that.

Tim Kowal And the last one, it's a two-parter. What's the most rewarding kind of proceeding to report and what's the least rewarding? Or maybe I'll put it personal terms. What kind of cases does Stephanie say, I'm going to take that one. And what are the ones that say, nope, farm that one out?

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, the most depressing ones that I come home feeling icky about are the trust and estates when the siblings are all fighting over mom's money. I don't know. Everybody has their preferences. Some people like that because it's the juicy gossip, but I don't know. It's icky to me. So that's my least favorite, I would say. I really enjoy medical, even though it's challenging. It's something different every single time. Every single time there's a surgery gone bad or a misdiagnosis or whatever. And that really served me well when my daughter ended up being born with a lot of medical problems and I could hang with the nurses with the terminology and they said, are you in the medical field? So I was so glad that I had taken a lot of that. That was really neat.

Tim Kowal Yeah, that's one of the other selling points to prospective members of the court reporting profession, is it not? That it's very interesting industry. You can travel, you get to meet interesting people and hear about interesting cases. And I guess you can even pick and choose what kind of cases that you want to report on.

Stephanie Leslie Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I've done some international work. There's all kinds of things to sit in on and it's fun. I more recently was, I've been hired by major league baseball and I do the postseason and the world baseball classic, the press conferences. It's really fun. So it can take you all kinds of places. Academy Awards.

Tim Kowal Well Stephanie, thank you so much for sitting down and talking with me. This has been very enlightening. As I mentioned, you know, I've been obviously as all trial and appellate attorneys are, have been watching and listening to what's been going on with the industry. So it's very optimistic to hear that there is maybe an uptick coming soon and that crisis and the numbers will be alleviated. And you give me a different perspective, a different lens through which to view this. So I appreciate that very much. It's the heart of what we do in having these conversations is sometimes you start out thinking that you're supporting something and then you hear the other point of view or vice versa. And you get a balanced picture of what's going on. But I do tend to agree with you that there is a difficult and momentous question before the California Supreme Court and depending on what it decides, could continue to facilitate the alleviation of the crisis or it could exacerbate it. So I think it has to be careful what it decides.

Stephanie Leslie Yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate you having me. And thanks for all your research. And you seem to really want to get to the right answer. And I don't know what the right answer is, but I hope we can get to it soon. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Tim Kowal Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Stephanie. And let's see that wraps up this episode. If you have suggestions for future episodes, please email us at info@calpodcast.com. In our upcoming episodes, look for tips on how to lay the groundwork for an appeal when preparing for trial.