For years, many solo and small firm lawyers have leveraged technology to support back-end functions such as case management, cloud-based document storage and legal research. But more recently, we’ve seen technology move away from behind the desk and towards the courtroom. The past few months brought news of a chatbot that will enable a consumer to prepare and file a lawsuit against Equifax in small claims court, a tool that enables consumers to file for bankruptcy without an attorney, and a platform that will upload and analyze a complaint and generate and answer and form interrogatories in minutes.

So here’s my question: if robots can potentially replace lawyers , why can’t they replace court reporters?

The public balks at the high price of lawyers — but what about the high price of court transcripts? While the price tag for a transcript is chump change for large firms with well-heeled clients, for many solos and smalls representing ordinary folk, exorbitant transcript costs can impact the outcome of the case. For example, many solos are forced to plan a case around the number of depositions that they can afford to take due to transcript costs, or may have to prep witnesses for trial without the benefit of reviewing of their deposition transcripts because they were too expensive to purchase. Meanwhile, pursuing an appeal — even one with merit — is out of the question unless the client can fork up several thousand dollars to purchase the trial transcript.

What’s most frustrating, however, is that technology can solve the problem. Although perhaps a full blown tech substitute for court reporters isn’t yet available, transcription technology is making great strides. On Twitter, I learned of a company, Spext.co, an AI-powered transcription service that costs just $23.99/month to transcribe 240 minutes of voice recording. That’s about 200 pages of transcript (based on one of my recent trials) — which would cost a minimum of $300 to transcribe if you’re lucky enough to find a reporter who charges $1.50/page (these days, costs are up around $4.00). In other words, digital transcription is more than 10 times less expensive than the cheapest transcript around.

Yet even with recent reports of a critical need for court reporters, few are talking about technology as a solution. Instead, the Court Reporters Association intends to visit local schools to stimulate interest in court reporting as a career. And indeed, the future market for court reporters is bullish as ever, according to this recent survey by Esquire Deposition Services which boasts that:

As technology has extinguished industries, redistributed wealth, and upended time-honored careers. Court reporters, however, remain bullish on their unique profession, which has stood the test of time and is poised for a new era of progress.

Yet court reporters are a powerful lobbying voice — with the political clout to halt the advance of technology in the courtroom. Meanwhile, because transcription is too practical a problem to capture the attention of legal futurists or Silicon Valley, there’s been no pushback against the court reporters cabal from those organizations, even as they fight for non-lawyer firm ownership and invest money in technologies that under the guise of “access to justice” will eviscerate the need for lawyers.

If we are truly concerned with access to justice, addressing the high cost of transcripts is the lowest hanging fruit there is. Moreover, access to digital transcripts opens up a whole world of possibility — transcripts are a treasure trove of data just waiting to be mined. What are we waiting for?

Alexa, won’t you please transcribe this court proceeding?

Carolyn Elefant has been blogging about solo and small firm practice at MyShingle.comsince 2002 and operated her firm, the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant PLLC, even longer than that. She’s also authored a bunch of books on topics like starting a law practice, social media, and 21st century lawyer representation agreements (affiliate links). If you’re really that interested in learning more about Carolyn, just Google her. The Internet never lies, right? You can contact Carolyn by email at elefant@myshingle.comor follow her on Twitter at @carolynelefant.