Are You Being Cheated?

A court reporting firm from somewhere – anywhere but where you are located – calls your local court reporting service and asks them “network”. This firm – we’ll call them Acme Reporting – has a contract with XYZ Insurance Company to provide court reporters nationwide at specific rates. And XYZ Insurance Company instructs all their representing attorneys – regardless of where they are located -- to call ACME Reporting when they need a court reporter. Now, Acme Reporting doesn’t have reporters in every city of the United States, so what do they do? They call a local reporting service and ask to them to provide a court reporter and send the transcript and invoice for services directly to ACME. Does any of this sound familiar?

Why should you care? Because you are being duped. Bottom line: It costs you money. Here’s why:

• ·       If Acme Reporting calls and “networks” with a local firm and the local firm sends Acme Reporting their invoice for services to Acme Reporting with their normal rates, do you think Acme is going to turn around and bill XYZ Insurance Company the same rates? Maybe. And maybe not.  One could argue they have to make money somehow, so they’ll upcharge and the cost of litigation goes up. It’s the classic example of why we as consumers always want to skip the middleman.

• ·       Acme Reporting has a contract with just XYZ Insurance Company for certain rates so if you are adversarial counsel, they can charge you whatever they want. And they might. And if they do, the cost of litigation goes up.

• ·       Acme Reporting may call an agency that is less reliable, less experienced, less trustworthy that will agree to work for reduced rates. That agency might not even use verbatim stenographic court reporters. Your transcript might take forever to receive and may not be up to the standards you are used to.

• ·       Here’s the hidden cost: Transcript bloat. It’s possible to shrink margins, increase font size, include extraneous pages and add blank lines so the transcript you receive can have 25% more pages. And when you pay by the page, the cost of litigation goes up.

What can you do? It’s hard to fight city hall, we know. The first step is awareness and knowledge. Know that this is what is happening on the business side of litigation. Then, look at the invoices you receive.  Call your local firm and compare the rates on your invoice with your local firm. Then decide, is it fair or not? If it’s not, you may want to bring this to the insurance carrier’s attention – or even insist on using your local firm who you trust and rely on.