From the blog
Notes on legal transcription, official records, and the teams that keep them.
GuideTranscribing 911 calls and dispatch communications: public safety's records burden
A 911 call is public record in most states and evidence in nearly every serious case it touches. What makes 911 audio so hard to transcribe, and where AI-assisted transcription helps a records unit that's almost always behind.
September 23, 2026 · 8 min read GuideTelehealth transcription: documenting virtual visits without breaking HIPAA
A telehealth visit's audio is PHI the moment it identifies a patient. The video-conferencing tool and any AI scribe both need a signed BAA — and the convenience add-on is exactly where compliance quietly breaks.
September 21, 2026 · 8 min read GuideArbitration and mediation transcription: what ADR proceedings need from a record
Arbitration hearings are transcribed on request to support narrow appeal grounds; mediation is built on confidentiality and privilege, and most practitioners avoid creating any transcript at all. Know which one you're in.
September 20, 2026 · 8 min read GuideWorkers' compensation hearing transcription: what adjusters, attorneys & judges need
Recorded statements, IME transcripts, and hearing testimony all shape a claim's outcome. What makes each admissible before a workers' comp judge, and why verbatim accuracy beats a summary.
September 19, 2026 · 8 min read GuideTranscribing public meetings and records requests: how governments keep an accurate record
Open-meetings laws require minutes, public-records laws require producing recordings on request, and ADA Title II requires captioning. What that means for city councils, school boards, and agencies — and how AI-assisted transcription cuts the backlog.
September 22, 2026 · 8 min read GuideDeposition transcription: rough drafts, certified transcripts & what to expect
Realtime feed, rough draft, and certified transcript are three different documents with three different jobs. What each is for, and where a certified court reporter is still required.
September 18, 2026 · 9 min read EngineeringSpeaker diarization explained: how AI knows who said what
Diarization is a separate problem from transcription — who spoke, not what was said. How it works, what diarization error rate measures, and what actually breaks it on multi-speaker audio.
September 13, 2026 · 8 min read GuideTranscription for financial services: SEC/FINRA recordkeeping, call monitoring & compliance
SEC Rule 17a-4, FINRA Rule 4511, and Reg BI shape how financial firms must retain and document calls and advisory conversations — what that means for transcription, and why a searchable transcript is what makes the record usable at exam time.
September 9, 2026 · 9 min read GuideAI transcription for insurance claims: recorded statements, SIU investigations & compliance
Recorded statements, examinations under oath, and SIU fraud interviews become evidence the moment a claim is contested. Consent-law compliance, verbatim accuracy, and the data-security standard carriers are already held to.
September 4, 2026 · 9 min read ComparisonThe 8 best Verbit alternatives in 2026: live captioning & legal transcription compared
Verbit is two products sold one way: talk to sales. Unicaption, exma, Rev, 3Play Media, Otter, Trint, Sonix, and Notta — matched to the job you actually hired Verbit for, with self-serve pricing where it exists.
August 19, 2026 · 11 min read Head-to-headRev vs. Verbit in 2026: pricing, accuracy, turnaround — and when neither is the right pick
Opposite business models in the same market: Rev's pay-per-file marketplace vs. Verbit's enterprise platform, compared round by round — plus the live-captioning and court-record rounds neither can win.
August 19, 2026 · 10 min read Buyer's guideLive captioning for interpreters & legal proceedings: the 2026 buyer's guide
CART costs $70–200/hour; AI captioning starts at $9/month. The six criteria that matter — latency, accents, live translation, bot-free capture, confidentiality, economics — and a shortlist for interpreters, agencies, courts, and clinics.
August 19, 2026 · 10 min read ReportThe court reporter shortage in 2026: the numbers, the causes & how courts are keeping the record
Under 23,000 stenographic reporters remain, the average reporter is 56, and 72% of California's civil hearings now happen with no verbatim record. The data behind the shortage — and how digital reporting and AI-assisted transcription fill the gap.
August 6, 2026 · 9 min read GuideIs AI transcription HIPAA-compliant? The BAA, safeguards & vendor checklist that decide it
Not automatically — and there is no official HIPAA certification. What actually decides it: a signed BAA, encryption, access controls with audit logs, no training on your audio, and retention you control.
August 6, 2026 · 8 min read GuideTranscribing body-cam footage & police interviews: taming the digital evidence flood
Felony cases now carry 4–6 hours of footage each, and one department logged 20,000+ hours in a quarter. Why transcripts beat scrubbing video, and how AI-drafted, human-verified transcription keeps evidence reviewable.
August 6, 2026 · 8 min read ComparisonThe best transcription software in 2026: 9 tools compared by use case
Otter, Fireflies, Rev, Descript, Whisper, Notta, Trint, Sonix, and exma — what each is actually best at, where each falls short, and how to pick for meetings, media, or the official record.
August 5, 2026 · 11 min read GuideSpeech to text, explained: how audio becomes accurate text in 2026
How modern speech recognition works, what word error rate really measures, the features that separate tools — diarization, vocabulary, capture, security — and how to choose by use case.
August 5, 2026 · 9 min read GuideReal-time transcription: how live speech becomes text in under a second
Streaming recognition, interim results, and latency budgets — how live transcription works, where it's used, and the four things to judge before choosing a tool.
August 5, 2026 · 8 min read How-toHow to transcribe audio to text: every method, step by step
AI upload, live capture, human services, open-source Whisper, or typing it yourself — real costs, speeds, and steps for each, plus the audio habits that improve every one of them.
August 5, 2026 · 8 min read ComparisonHuman vs. AI legal transcription in 2026: accuracy, speed, cost — and when you still need a human
Accuracy on clean and difficult audio, turnaround, cost per audio hour, and the certification step AI can't replace — compared side by side, plus the hybrid AI-draft, human-certify workflow courts and firms actually use.
August 4, 2026 · 10 min read PricingHow much does legal transcription cost? Court reporters vs. transcription services vs. AI
Per-page, per-minute, and per-appearance pricing decoded — plus the rough-draft, expedite, and copy fees that quietly double a deposition invoice, and how to convert any quote into a number you can actually compare.
July 28, 2026 · 9 min read SecurityIs your AI transcription tool safe for confidential audio? A 12-point checklist
Twelve questions to put to any vendor before privileged audio goes through it — model training rights, retention, subprocessors, BAAs, bot-free capture — and what a good answer actually sounds like.
July 28, 2026 · 10 min read Comparisonexma vs. consumer AI note-takers: Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Granola, tl;dv & Notta, compared one by one
Consumer note-takers summarize meetings. exma produces the record. Where each tool wins, where each falls short for regulated work, and how to choose.
July 23, 2026 · 8 min read GuideWhat makes a transcript court-admissible? Certification, chain of custody & formatting, explained
Courts accept a transcript because someone can vouch for it. The five pillars of admissibility — lawful recording, verbatim fidelity, authentication, certification, and chain of custody — in plain language, with a practical checklist.
July 23, 2026 · 7 min read EngineeringReal-time speech-to-text in the courtroom: from microphone to record
The pipeline behind live legal transcription: capture without a meeting bot, streaming recognition, speaker diarization, legal vocabulary, and the human review that turns a live draft into the official record.
July 23, 2026 · 7 min read