Karen Renee and Judy Gerulat like to say they approach their business the same way they ride their motorcycles: There's no reverse.
The pair — who became fast friends more than 20 years ago after bonding over their Harley-Davidson bikes — went into business together in 2017 with eCourt Reporters, an online platform for scheduling legal support services.
Renee, a court reporter herself, founded the business to solve scheduling inefficiencies she noticed in the industry. Gerulat, who previously worked in local government, couldn't believe a solution hadn't already been created and signed on to help.
"We met each other through that same common love of riding our own motorcycles," Gerulat said. "I knew that (Renee) was a strong independent woman because of that."
Renee and Gerulat worked with a team of developers to build out the eCourt Reporters platform, which enables users to schedule court reporters in minutes instead of the up to four hours it otherwise takes most paralegals, according to a survey by eCourt Reporters.
eCourt Reporters, which is based in Burlington but serves users nationwide, currently has 2,000 registrations across 49 U.S. states — including more than 1,600 court reporters and videographers, and around 350 schedulers, Renee said. Once users register, eCourt Reporters puts them through a vetting process.
eCourt Reporters has participated in various local entrepreneurship programs, including gener8tor's gBETA accelerator, Project Pitch It, and the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest, in which it was this year's business services category winner.
As it looks to rev up its growth, eCourt Reporters said it plans to hire a sales and marketing team, and get all of its active court reporters working at least three jobs per week. It also intends to expand to other legal support services such as process servers, scopists, proofreaders and interpreters.
"We knew quickly that it's not just a local thing," Renee said. "This is special and it's going to be nationwide and we've already been asked to go international."
The technology/product: A two-sided marketplace that gives law firms, government entities and court reporting agencies the ability to schedule court reporters and other legal support services across the U.S. with live calendar capabilities.
How it makes money: A 15% average transaction fee per proceeding booked through the platform.
Size of the market: The U.S. total available market is $4.7 billion, according to eCourt Reporters. The company is initially targeting the nearly 7,000 court reporters and legal videographers certified by the National Court Reporters Association, which it said has an annual market opportunity of $1.1 billion.
Competition: NexDep, TekMatch, StenoTrak, Steno
Competitive Advantage: eCourt Reporters said it's the first to market and that its platform has unique features such as live calendar availability, upfront pricing, a search-by-name tool, peer ratings, certification listings and a vetting process.
Business/technology it could disrupt: The analog process of scheduling certified court reporters. Making this process more efficient could help firms save clients excessive scheduling charges and free up paralegals’ time to focus on pre-trial preparation, which could lead to better outcomes in litigation cases, eCourt Reporters said.
Key leadership: CEO and founder Karen Renee; chief operating officer Judy Gerulat
Advisers: gBETA, Jess Bertling, Robbie Nesmith, David Tominsky, Eric Engleman and June Weyrauch
Investors: ISA Ventures
Capital raised: $120,000
Capital sought: $380,000
Ideal exit: Merge with or get acquired by a legal software company or a firm from another industry. eCourt Reporters said its platform was designed to be customized for any freelance business that operates on calendar availability, meaning it could quickly be adjusted to be white-labeled for other industries.
Company name: eCourt Reporters Inc.
Headquarters: Burlington
Year founded: 2017
CEO: Karen Renee
No. of employees: 2
Website: www.ecourtreporters.com
