How to Value a Court Reporting Agency in 2026

Court reporting is a business in the middle of a generational transition, and that transition is showing up directly in valuations. Five years ago a well-run regional agency traded at 4-5x EBITDA without much argument. Today the same agency is getting 3-4.5x, and buyers are spending a lot more time asking about AI transcription, Zoom-era realtime workflows, and what happens when the average stenographer retires in the next ten years.

None of this means court reporting agencies are unsellable. The profitable ones with good law firm relationships still sell, and a few are selling at premium multiples because they've figured out how to embrace the technology shift rather than fight it. But the days of assuming a court reporting agency is a "safe" exit at 5x EBITDA are over.

The Range: 3-5x EBITDA

Court reporting agencies trade at 3.0-5.0x EBITDA in the current environment, with strategic platform acquisitions occasionally pushing to 6x. A $4M revenue agency with $750K EBITDA is looking at somewhere between $2.25M and $3.75M in enterprise value depending on client mix, technology stack, and reporter bench depth. Five years ago that same agency might have pulled $3.75-4.5M. The compression is real and it's largely technology-driven.

Smaller agencies — under $1.5M revenue — increasingly fall out of the EBITDA framework entirely and sell on 1.8-2.8x SDE instead, because the owner is typically still reporting depositions themselves and the economics only work as an owner-operator play. That's a meaningful distinction because it changes the buyer pool and the structure of the deal. See SDE vs EBITDA for how to think about which applies to your agency.

Why the Contractor Pool Is Your Real Asset

The supply of certified stenographers in the US is shrinking every year. The average age of a working steno is over 55, enrollment in court reporting programs has collapsed, and the NCRA has been sounding the alarm about the shortage for a decade. For agency owners, that shortage is simultaneously the biggest risk and the biggest moat.

Agencies with deep, loyal contractor benches — 40+ active reporters who prioritize your agency's jobs — are genuinely scarce assets. Buyers will pay a premium for them because they can't replicate them. I've seen deals where the agency itself was mediocre but the reporter roster was valuable enough to justify the price, with the explicit intent of folding the reporters into a larger platform.

The question buyers ask during diligence is brutal but fair: how many of your top 20 reporters have worked for you in each of the last three years? If the answer is 15+, you have a real asset. If the answer is 7, reporters are treating you as a backup agency and they'll follow better rates the moment a competitor courts them. Retention rate on reporters is probably the single most important operational metric in a court reporting sale.

The AI Transcription Question

Every buyer is going to ask about AI transcription, and you need to have a real answer. The short version: automated transcription from Otter, Rev, Verbit, and newer AI-first competitors is good enough for non-litigation work and getting better every quarter. It is not yet good enough for certified, court-admissible deposition transcripts because it can't handle cross-talk, it mis-identifies speakers, and it can't certify under oath.

That gap is what protects court reporting agency value right now. But the gap is narrowing, and buyers know it. What they want to see is an agency that has already integrated AI tools into its workflow — using automated rough drafts to speed up scoping, using AI-assisted review to reduce turnaround time, and positioning the certified human reporter as the compliance layer on top of the AI stack. Agencies that are still fighting the technology trade at a discount. Agencies that have embraced it as a productivity tool trade at the top of the range.

Verbit acquired vTestify and several traditional agencies in recent years specifically to combine AI transcription with certified reporter networks. US Legal Support and Veritext — the two largest national platforms — have both been aggressive about AI-assisted workflow. When you're evaluating your own agency, ask yourself whether you'd fit into one of their platforms on day one or whether you'd need a three-year tech overhaul.

Law Firm Client Concentration

The revenue question buyers focus on is how diversified your law firm book is. A healthy court reporting agency has 80-150 active law firm clients with no single firm representing more than 10-15% of revenue. Insurance defense and complex litigation firms are the most valuable because they generate steady volume and tend to be sticky with agencies that deliver reliably.

Concentration risk is real. I've seen agencies where 40% of revenue came from one major plaintiffs firm, and when that firm got acquired and their new parent standardized on a different court reporting vendor, the agency lost half its revenue in a quarter. Buyers discount heavily for that kind of concentration — often 1x EBITDA off the multiple — because the downside case is catastrophic.

What Buyers Diligence

• Remote deposition capability: Zoom depositions are permanent. Agencies need a real remote platform (Veritext Virtual, Remote Counsel, proprietary solutions) with tech support built into the offering.
• Turnaround times: Standard delivery is 7-10 business days. Expedited is 1-3 days at 50-100% premium pricing. Buyers want to see what percentage of revenue is expedited — higher is better.
• Reporter compensation splits: Industry standard is 60-70% to the reporter, 30-40% to the agency on page rate plus a fixed appearance fee. Unusual splits get questioned.
• Videographer and interpreter capabilities: Agencies that handle video and interpretation in-house earn an extra 15-25% per deposition and are worth more than audio-only operations.
• Repository and transcript sales: Residual income from transcript copy orders is pure margin. A strong repository can add 10-15% to topline.

The Active Acquirers

Veritext (owned by Leonard Green) and US Legal Support (owned by Cobepa) are the two biggest consolidators and have been steadily acquiring regional agencies for a decade. Lexitas, Planet Depos, and Magna Legal Services round out the PE-backed national platforms. Verbit represents the AI-first buyer archetype, and BlueStar Case Solutions has been rolling up mid-sized agencies. Any agency with $500K+ EBITDA, a deep reporter bench, and decent law firm diversification is on their radar whether you've approached them or not.

What Destroys Value

Owner is the top biller. If the owner is personally reporting 30%+ of depositions, buyers will strip that revenue out because it walks away at close. Transition your book to other reporters 18-24 months before going to market.

Shallow reporter bench. Fewer than 20 active reporters means the agency can't handle volume spikes and is one departure away from a crisis. Buyers see fragility.

Legacy technology stack. Agencies still running on CompuScribe, paper calendars, and manual scheduling are essentially unsellable to institutional buyers. The tech debt is too expensive to remediate post-close.

Worker classification exposure. Reporters are almost always 1099, but California AB5 and similar state laws have created real misclassification risk. Buyers will want clean contractor agreements and evidence of independent contractor status. Getting this right is part of basic sale preparation.

The Bottom Line

Court reporting is a profitable, sticky services business undergoing real technological disruption. The agencies that sell well in 2026 are the ones that have modernized their tech stack, built deep reporter benches, diversified law firm relationships, and positioned themselves as complementary to AI transcription rather than in competition with it. If you're in that group, the national consolidators are still paying 4-5x EBITDA and occasionally more. If you're running a 1995-era agency with a shrinking reporter pool and no tech investment, the multiple drops fast and the buyer pool shrinks to local competitors. The difference is what you build over the next two years.