The incentives being offered for court reporting services has become a hot topic over the last several years. The recession has caused a large decrease in the amount of depositions and the competition for the depositions has become fierce.
The National Court Reporters Association has a Code of Professional Ethics that specifically mentions gift-giving. Many of the court reporting agencies are aware of the gift-giving practices in the court reporting industry which outright violate the NCRA Code of Professional Ethics.
I congratulate the many members of the court reporting community who are trying to educate their clients on the ramifications of taking these incentives. More and more court reporters and owners of court reporting agencies are educating their clients in this regard.
I hear about and see these violations on a daily basis. Yet I do not understand how members of the NCRA maintain their membership with these types of violations.
Ethics has become one of the main topics in our society in all types of businesses. Perhaps, the severe economic conditions we were living with bring out a more desperate type of behavior. It is yet another unfortunate state of our society brought about by the financial problems we are all facing and our professional, court reporting is not immune from these forces.