Spurred by companies like Uber and Lyft, the “gig economy” has slowly began to pervade the legal market with web-based on demand offerings for attorneys and legal services. Entering this legal gig economy is DirectDep, an app for attorneys and legal professionals to hire and schedule stenographers on an as needed basis.

What it is: DirectDep is a cloud-based application through which users can schedule and reserve court reporters and stenographers. Scott Gilly, founder and CEO of DirectDep and a former labor and employment attorney, said the application aims to address two main pain points he experienced when scheduling court reporters.

“The first problem was an inefficient and frustrating manual booking process, and the second was inconsistent quality both inside the deposition room with the reporting experience itself and with the quality of the transcripts,” he said.

How it works: As a cloud-based platform, DirectDep can automatically sync with users' calendars hosted on email accounts like Gmail and Outlook to facilitate scheduling court reporters. Each stenographer available through the application has their own profile, which lists their biographical information and work experience. Profiles can also list reporters qualifications, legal certifications and their proficiencies with other languages or technologies..

Court reporters' names, skills, and qualifications are searchable through the DirectDep platform through a user dashboard, which also displays previous court reporters a user has hired in the past. Each court reporter profile also has user-generated reviews on a scale from one to five, and may include written comments from the legal users who have used the reporter's services in the past.

While all users are free to review the court reporters they hire, DirectDep will “verify the reviews internally [to make sure] that they are valid reviews from real users who had an actual experience,” Gilly said.

Pricing Structure: DirectDep charges a $49 fee to court reporting agencies each time one of their reporters is reserved through their platform. There is no charge to lawyers, paralegals or other legal professional users that hire court reporters through the application.

DirectDep, however, does not have a payment portal to help legal users directly pay the court reporting agencies for their services. Gilly noted that such payment functionally is “definitely part of our road map” to include in the near future.

Competition: Being the first on-demand application for court reporters, DirectDep is, for now, uncontested. “We are the only real-time scheduling platform covering the court reporting industry, so there is not yet a direct competitor that has entered this market,” Gilly said.

There are also other companies who might eye on-demand court reporting services. Companies like Avvo, LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer have looked to make hiring an attorney as automatic and inexpensive as booking a car service online, while case information platform eLaw allows users to book stand-in attorneys for court appears using a similar on-demand application.

For their part, DirectDep is aiming “expand into other litigation support services as well,” Gilly said, including potentially offering on-demand foreign language interpreters, process servers, and expert witnesses.

Spurred by companies like Uber and Lyft, the “gig economy” has slowly began to pervade the legal market with web-based on demand offerings for attorneys and legal services. Entering this legal gig economy is DirectDep, an app for attorneys and legal professionals to hire and schedule stenographers on an as needed basis.

What it is: DirectDep is a cloud-based application through which users can schedule and reserve court reporters and stenographers. Scott Gilly, founder and CEO of DirectDep and a former labor and employment attorney, said the application aims to address two main pain points he experienced when scheduling court reporters.

“The first problem was an inefficient and frustrating manual booking process, and the second was inconsistent quality both inside the deposition room with the reporting experience itself and with the quality of the transcripts,” he said.

How it works: As a cloud-based platform, DirectDep can automatically sync with users' calendars hosted on email accounts like Gmail and Outlook to facilitate scheduling court reporters. Each stenographer available through the application has their own profile, which lists their biographical information and work experience. Profiles can also list reporters qualifications, legal certifications and their proficiencies with other languages or technologies..

Court reporters' names, skills, and qualifications are searchable through the DirectDep platform through a user dashboard, which also displays previous court reporters a user has hired in the past. Each court reporter profile also has user-generated reviews on a scale from one to five, and may include written comments from the legal users who have used the reporter's services in the past.

While all users are free to review the court reporters they hire, DirectDep will “verify the reviews internally [to make sure] that they are valid reviews from real users who had an actual experience,” Gilly said.

Pricing Structure: DirectDep charges a $49 fee to court reporting agencies each time one of their reporters is reserved through their platform. There is no charge to lawyers, paralegals or other legal professional users that hire court reporters through the application.

DirectDep, however, does not have a payment portal to help legal users directly pay the court reporting agencies for their services. Gilly noted that such payment functionally is “definitely part of our road map” to include in the near future.

Competition: Being the first on-demand application for court reporters, DirectDep is, for now, uncontested. “We are the only real-time scheduling platform covering the court reporting industry, so there is not yet a direct competitor that has entered this market,” Gilly said.

There are also other companies who might eye on-demand court reporting services. Companies like Avvo, LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer have looked to make hiring an attorney as automatic and inexpensive as booking a car service online, while case information platform eLaw allows users to book stand-in attorneys for court appears using a similar on-demand application.

For their part, DirectDep is aiming “expand into other litigation support services as well,” Gilly said, including potentially offering on-demand foreign language interpreters, process servers, and expert witnesses.