As our industry reaches a crucial inflection point, a memory keeps coming up in my mind. 

It was a warm evening, but the ocean breeze cooled it down perfectly for the outdoor cocktail reception, calming my brain in a way that rarely happens when I'm responsible for running an in-person conference. Court reporters, firm owners, and a cross-section of industry vendors were sipping drinks as the sun slowly set and having the kind of easy, engaging conversations that only happen when a group of people deeply understand a unique profession like few others can. 

I remember noticing how comfortable it all felt to me, now that I had been in the industry long enough to know most of the names and the faces. But suddenly, something stood out to me. A man I didn’t recognize was standing off by himself, not engaged in any of the lively conversations happening all around us. I’m far from an extrovert, but leveraging that feeling of comfort and belonging, I introduced myself to him and struck up a conversation. His name was David and he had traveled overseas to attend the conference. He told me about his newly-launched court reporting company and what types of people he was hoping to connect with at the conference. I pretty quickly had a list of names in my head and we walked around for ten or fifteen minutes together while I introduced him to various people who I thought might be interested in meeting him. 

David and I later became friends and he told me that those fifteen minutes made the event worth his entire trip, his hotel, his registration, and his time. Those quick connections to other people at the welcome reception turned into a dinner invite, a conversation in the hallway outside the seminar room, a follow-up phone call after the conference was over and everyone was back home. And eventually it led to depos getting covered and happy clients.

That was ten years ago and David’s company has grown by leaps and bounds, but the story still stands out in my mind as an illustration of how human the court reporting industry can be and how well things go when we embrace and acknowledge that humanity. How a little effort put toward connecting and supporting each other can go a surprisingly long way.  

"The story still stands out in my mind as an illustration of how human the court reporting industry can be and how well things go when we embrace and acknowledge that humanity." 

I've thought about that evening a lot over the past several months, as two organizations I care deeply about began imagining what it would look like to finally build a court reporting association that’s centered on the people who actually make the record. By now, you will have heard of the move by AAERT and STAR to merge and create CAPTUR, the industry’s first association to unite every professional who creates, supports, and protects the legal record. One reason that this is such an important development is because it will put humans back at the center of our industry.

Decades of our time and resources as an industry have been spent trying to put technology at the center, debating which tools should or shouldn’t be used. We’ve allowed endless arguments over the one true way to make the record to distract us from our real mission: serving our clients and honoring the high level of trust they place in us. It has also made us smaller. It has eroded the qualities of warmth and generosity that have always been part of what makes court reporting special. The ones that made that moment of connection at the reception possible in the first place.

As clients, courts, and the marketplace embraced and found success with a variety of different tools and techniques for making the record, voices in our industry kept insisting that court reporting was a battle over slices of a shrinking pie, even in the midst of a serious reporter shortage which has proven the exact opposite. 

"The best time to change this would have been 10 years ago. The second-best time is now." 

A longtime mentor of mine used to say, “the best time to change this would have been 10 years ago. The second-best time is now.” We can’t change the past, but CAPTUR offers us a uniquely powerful opportunity to decide our own future. I'll have the honor of serving as CAPTUR's first Executive Director. It’s a responsibility I don't take lightly, and why I’ve been spending so much time thinking about what it takes to design an association that works for everyone in our industry.

My conclusion is this: If we make the future about working together to advance our industry rather than fighting over who gets to slice the pie, if we make it about embracing change and building organizations that scale with our potential, and most importantly, if we make it about the incredibly dedicated, talented, and passionate human makers of the record, we’ll be looking back ten years from now on this moment and marveling at how so much good came from one simple decision: to put people first.

Learn More About CAPTUR here: https://aaert.org/captur-merger-details/