Report

The court reporter shortage in 2026: the numbers, the causes & how courts are keeping the record

By the exma team · August 6, 2026 · 9 min read

The numbers, in one place

The shortage has been predicted since consulting firm Ducker Worldwide's often-cited 2013–14 industry study projected demand would outstrip supply by thousands of reporters before 2020. A decade later, the data shows it arrived on schedule:

Two of those rows deserve a second look. The California figure is not "hearings that were harder to staff" — it is hundreds of thousands of proceedings where, if a party later needs to show an appellate court what was said, there is nothing to show. And the license-age figure means the shortage compounds: nearly half the remaining workforce is within sight of retirement.

Why it happened

A retirement cliff

Stenography boomed as a career in the 1970s and 80s. That generation is now retiring together, taking decades of skill with it — and reporters in their 50s and 60s make up the bulk of the remaining workforce.

A collapsed training pipeline

Writing 225 words per minute on a steno machine is genuinely hard. Programs typically take two to four years, dropout rates are high, and dozens of steno schools have closed. Far fewer students finish each year than the profession loses to retirement — a gap no recruiting campaign has closed.

Demand didn't fall — it grew

Litigation volume, deposition counts, and the number of proceedings that need a record keep rising. A shrinking supply meeting growing demand shows up exactly where you'd expect: scheduling delays, rising appearance fees, and courts triaging which proceedings get a reporter at all. (For what those fees look like, see How much does legal transcription cost?)

What the shortage costs courts and firms

• Records that don't exist. When no reporter is available and no recording is made, appeals proceed on reconstructed "settled statements" — slow, contested, and worse for everyone.
• Delayed proceedings. Depositions and hearings get continued for want of a reporter; 76% of surveyed legal professionals report scheduling difficulty.
• Rising costs. Scarcity pricing: higher appearance fees, higher per-page rates, and premium charges for expedited delivery — 55% of professionals report cost increases.
• Unequal access. Well-funded parties hire private reporters; self-represented and lower-income litigants go without a record. Court leaders have called this a two-tier system in the making.

How courts are responding

Four approaches, often combined:

1. Recruiting and incentives — scholarships, loan forgiveness, higher pay. Helpful, but training still takes years and enrollment remains far below replacement.
2. Electronic recording — courtroom audio systems capture the proceeding; transcripts are produced on demand. Increasingly authorized as stopgap or standard, varying by state and case type.
3. Digital court reporting — a trained (and in many states, certified) digital reporter manages professional multi-channel capture and annotates in real time. Training takes months, not years, which widens the pipeline.
4. AI-assisted transcription — speech recognition produces a speaker-separated verbatim draft in real time or minutes after upload; a human reviews against the audio and certifies. This is where the economics change most, because one professional can cover many more proceedings.

For how the live pipeline works end to end — capture, diarization, interim results, final record — see Real-time speech-to-text in the courtroom, and for what turns a draft into an admissible record, see What makes a transcript court-admissible?

If you need a record and can't get a reporter

1. Check what your jurisdiction permits. Electronic recording and digital reporters are authorized differently by state and proceeding type.
2. Arrange capture in advance. The worst outcome is discovering at the proceeding that no record will exist. A reliable recording plus a transcription workflow beats reconstruction every time.
3. Get a same-day draft. AI transcription gives you searchable, speaker-separated text while the testimony is fresh — for case prep, read-backs, and follow-up questions.
4. Certify what needs certifying. Route the draft to human review and certification only where the record requires it, instead of paying certified rates for every hour of audio.

Frequently asked questions

Why is there a court reporter shortage?

A retirement cliff met a collapsed training pipeline. The average stenographic reporter is about 56; training takes two to four years with high dropout; and enrollment has fallen far below the replacement rate. The workforce has shrunk roughly 21% in a decade.

How bad is it?

Bad enough that records simply aren't being made: 72.4% of California's unlimited civil, family, and probate hearings in early 2026 had no verbatim record. Surveys find 76% of legal professionals hit scheduling problems and 55% face higher costs.

What is digital court reporting?

Professional multi-channel audio capture managed by a trained digital reporter, with the transcript produced afterward — increasingly AI-drafted and human-certified. Months of training instead of years, which is the point.

Can AI replace court reporters?

No. AI replaces the capture-speed bottleneck, not the human attestation courts require. The working model is AI draft, human review and certification — one professional covering many more proceedings.

What if no reporter is available for my proceeding?

Depending on jurisdiction: proceed without a record (risky), use court electronic recording, or arrange a digital reporter or recording-plus-transcription workflow by stipulation. Decide before the proceeding, not after.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Rules on who may keep the record, electronic recording, and certification vary by state and court — always check the rules that govern your proceeding. Statistics cited reflect publicly reported figures as of mid-2026.