A recent report out of New York makes clear that the court reporter shortage is not just a staffing challenge. It is a civil rights issue.

The Yonkers Times this week documented what is happening in New York courts as the national shortage of certified court reporters continues to deepen in states all across the country: Litigants are losing their ability to appeal. Not because they lost on the merits, but because the record that would allow them to challenge a ruling simply does not exist.

That is not a theoretical harm. It is happening now, much more often than you realize.

The stenographer workforce has declined by 21 percent over the past decade. Retirements are outpacing new entrants into the profession, and the pipeline has not recovered. The result is a system under increasing strain, making the foundational infrastructure of appellate review, the official transcript, harder to produce, preserve, and access.

New York’s Court of Appeals recently confronted a criminal case in which a court stenographer had failed to capture large portions of the trial record, substituting phrases like “blah blah blah” and “untranscribable” for the words actually spoken. Three full days of jury selection, opening statements, summations, jury instructions, and the verdict were among the missing or defective portions.

The court called the failures “utterly inexcusable.” It ultimately held that a reconstruction hearing could remedy the due process harm in that particular case. But the court’s ruling raises the more important question: what happens in cases where a meaningful reconstruction is not possible? What happens when the judges, attorneys, and witnesses needed to reconstruct the record are no longer available?

That is not a hypothetical. For some litigants, it is already the reality.

New York is not alone. The California Supreme Court is weighing whether a prohibition on electronic recording in civil proceedings is unconstitutional when no court reporter is available and a litigant cannot afford a private one. The Texas Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument this fall on whether AI-assisted transcription tools can produce a legally valid deposition record. Courts and litigants across the country are navigating a system that was built around a professional workforce that is shrinking faster than it can be replenished.

The Coalition to Capture the Record was formed precisely because waiting for a string of adverse court rulings to force systemic change is not a strategy. The court reporter shortage requires proactive legislative and regulatory solutions including legally expanding the methods of capture to include digital and voice reporting, training and credentialing a new generation of qualified legal record professionals, and establishing accountability standards that protect every litigant’s right to an accurate and complete record.

The New York story is a warning. It is also an opportunity. Legislators and court administrators who read cases like People v. Meyers and the accounts of litigants who cannot pursue valid appeals should understand that the policy window to act is open — and that the cost of delay is being paid by real people, right now, in courtrooms across their states.

The record matters. The people who depend on it cannot wait.