In collaboration with the National Court Reporters Association’s contracted lobbyist Will Krieger, junior partner at Farragut Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm, as well as Executive Director Dave Wenhold, CAE, PLC, NCRA’s Government Relations Department is pleased to offer the following update regarding proposed legislation.
As a direct result of the effective advocacy of NCRA members on the Hill at the 2024 Leadership and Legislative Boot Camp event held this spring, a great amount of progress has been made in getting NCRA’s legislation introduced for a vote in Congress regarding the threat of artificial intelligence in the court reporting, professional captioning, and legal videography communities. This is also the culmination of a nearly six-year-long effort starting with the establishment of the NCRA STRONG Committee — initially an ad-hoc task force — in 2019 and the publication of the white paper “Emerging Ethical and Legal Issues Related to the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Voice Cloning, and Digital Audio Recording of Legal Proceedings” highlighting the emerging ethical issues related to the implementation of artificial intelligence in the nation’s judiciary.
“As of mid-June, elected officials are having their office counsels review the proposed legislation for stylistic compatibility in anticipation of having it entered into the ‘hopper’ (the last stop before a bill is formally introduced ),” states Wenhold, a seasoned, award-winning lobbyist, saying that this is a substantial development and that there are “a lot of moving parts.”
“One of NCRA’s top priorities has been implementing the initiatives of our Association’s task forces and committees into this bill,” Wenhold says. “As a result, we are closing in on having the first but certainly not the last of its kind of legislation dedicated solely to addressing artificial intelligence in the U.S. judicial system. Our contacts on the Hill have told us that NCRA is ahead of the curve on introducing this AI legislation. We would like to thank all of the attendees of the recent Boot Camps, current and past NCRA STRONG Committee members, our current and previous Boards and GR team, and our contract lobbyist for getting us to this important point in providing protections to the record. NCRA takes our role as guardians of the record very seriously. This is why we are the gold standard in the record-making process.”
