Barkley court reporting profits as it attracts powerful clients while maintaining its independence amid wave of consolidations

Court reporting is big business in Los Angeles. And as with most big businesses, the court reporting field is dominated by a few national giants. An industry consolidation over the past five years has seen many of L.A.’s independent court reporting agencies gobbled up.

But through it all, Barkley Court Reporting has managed to remain independent.

Today, the Santa Monica-based company has 100 certified shorthand reporters servicing more than 2,000 individual and corporate clients worldwide.

A court reporter’s primary responsibility is to transcribe on a stenotype machine a verbatim transcript of court proceedings. It’s a skill that typically takes about three years to sufficiently master.

Pat Barkley, after mastering the trade, spent several additional years building her business.

“I learned about the profession from a friend who was a hearing reporter for the state of California,” Barkley said. “The college I was attending at the time had a course on court reporting, so I enrolled, did well and transferred to a private school to study it full time.”

Barkley graduated from L.A.’s Bryan College of Court Reporting in 1972 and, after freelancing for a year, she and two fellow reporters rented a small wooden bungalow on Olympic Boulevard and opened up shop.

“The den was our office, the kitchen was our assembly room, the living room was our reception area and my mother was our receptionist,” Barkley recalled. “We had no computers or copiers, only typewriters and dirty carbon paper that took tons of Ajax to scrub off our hands every night.”

Despite her modest office space, Barkley’s business quickly took off.

“I just took to it right away. I’m very organized and just kept building a client base and hiring more reporters and staff.”

A few years later, Barkley’s business was booming, but she was burnt out and began searching for a new career. That search ultimately led her to Pepperdine University’s School of Business and Management, where she heard countless horror stories from young businessmen afraid of losing their jobs or of being transferred out of state.

“I suddenly realized how good I had it,” she said. “So, instead of beginning a new career, I decided to take what I learned in business school and really expand the business I had.”

And expand she did. Five years after earning her MBA, Barkley’s business was one of the biggest court reporting agencies in Los Angeles, which is why so many large national firms have tried to buy her business out.

Buyout offers

“There was a big wave of consolidation in our industry in 1997,” Barkley said. “Wall Street thought court reporting was something they could take public and make a lot of money on, so we had all these national firms offering to buy the business. We thought about it, and ultimately decided we didn’t want to sell, but a lot of companies I grew up with got rolled up.”

One of Barkley’s biggest competitors today is Depo Depot. Based in L.A., Depo Depot services hundreds of clients nationwide, according to office manager Ranya Kimbell.

Other competitors of Barkley’s include Real Time L.A., Hutchings Court Reporters and Esquire.

A typical court reporter earns $60,000 to $75,000 a year, but a reporter can make as much as $100,000 or more, if they work hard.

All of Barkley’s court reporters are independent contractors, who are paid on a per-page basis. The reporters typically keep 65 to 70 percent of a day’s billing, and Barkley gets the rest.

Despite a highly competitive market, Barkley has amassed an impressive client list, which includes Latham & Watkins, Irell & Manella, Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker and Shepherd Mullin Richter & Hampton.

“We’re in most of the big firms, but my goal is to get into all of them,” she said.

Personal touch

Many of Barkley’s clients say what distinguishes her company from the large firms is the personal touch she adds to all aspects of her business.

Barkley still refers to her MBA thesis “Attorney’s Attitudes Toward Court Reporters” in teaching reporters how to service clients. “The No. 1 complaint I found in my research, which still holds true today, is not being on time,” she said. “So I tell all my reporters that if they aren’t 15 minutes early, they’re late.”

On the rare occasion that one of Barkley’s reporters does show up late, her goal is to remedy the situation herself as quickly as she can. “My goal is to make our client glad we made the mistake,” she said. “One time one of my reporters messed up somehow and our client was furious, so I flew to San Francisco to hand-deliver his favorite bottle of wine and apologize.”

Barkley also invests a lot of time recruiting and grooming new reporters. “One of my biggest challenges is getting top-notch reporters,” she said.

Barkley’s workforce is currently 95 percent women, which is about standard for the industry.