Internet Newsletter for Lawyers
November/December 2005, by Delia Venables

Digital dictation has been a rapidly developing field over the last few years. By using a handheld digital recording device, a lawyer is able to record work wherever he or she wishes, and then download the collected voice files to a computer in the firm whence it is “farmed out” to the most suitable, or most available, secretary.

In-house systems can vary from a one-to-one version, between one fee-earner and one secretary, to a massive corporate management system with multiple departments and several locations. So far, it is mainly the larger firms who have adopted digital dictation but smaller firms and chambers are now also showing a keen interest.

In all these cases, special software is needed to manage the recording (stops, starts, corrections, priorities etc) and the transcription process, where the secretary has to be able to control the incoming voice file (stops, starts, corrections, status reports etc). There are many firms vying to provide the relevant hardware and software and some of these contenders can be seen on my website at www.venables.co.uk/softwarevoice.htm.

Voice files can be sent by telephone or email to secretaries working at home or to freelancers or to transcription companies, which manage the work for multiple users and multiple secretaries. Transcription is a very suitable service to “outsource” or "off-shore" and the actual transcription services are often provided abroad, for example in India and South Africa. There are many companies now offering transcription services to lawyers, as can be seen from my page www.venables.co.uk/transcription.htm. Some of these specialise in legal work, as for example, www.uktyping.com, a service set up by the partners of the Radia Partnership, in Harrow.

Hosted Digital Workflow Service

The Commercial Director of SRC, Colin Howman, writes:

The service provides telephone, wireless and most importantly, web access for solicitors and barristers who want to record dictation and have their completed documents returned to them within a guaranteed period of time.

All that the lawyer requires is a dictation device (typically a Philips or Olympus mobile recorder or microphone) and some simple software on their desktop. He or she then simply signs up to an agreed turnaround time for their work with one of the transcription providers involved in the scheme and then dictates into the application on the PC. When the lawyer is finished a simple mouse click sends his or her dictation in an encrypted format securely over the web to the hosted dictation service where it is accessed by the appropriate transcription provider.

The audio is compressed and streamed and thus limited bandwidth is required.

The system also provides real-time information on where the lawyer’s work is in the transcription process, enabling them to check if it has been completed. Typed up work is normally e-mailed back to the lawyer as a completed document and the transcription provider can also keep lawyer’s preferred templates on file so that documents are returned fully formatted and ready to be sent to client. As an alternative to e-mail delivery, the system also allows documents to be viewed or collected on line, rather like the use of a web-based email service.

To date around 60 organisations, mostly with 1 to 10 fee earners, access the service every day, and the volume of work being processed continues to grow significantly as lawyers become comfortable with a web-based dictation and transcription service.

It also helps significantly that the service is based on a world-leading dictation technology from WinScribe (www.winscribe.com) which is very well known in the marketplace and is already used by many transcription companies.

Transcription is being carried out in countries as far away as South Africa (www.exigent-global.com), and Australia (www.jpexec.com). Both these countries have good levels of skilled legal transcription staff and use shift operations to ensure their next day turnaround.

If access to the internet is lost for any reason, lawyers can simply dictate via a telephone and their work still reaches the transcription service as quickly as before.

So for the smaller law firm, or for barristers, the combination of leading-edge digital dictation technology and the web has provided an exciting new service that fits well with the increased demands and expectations on lawyers to provide a fast and reliable service to their clients.

More information on the service can be found at www.src.co.uk/whatwedo/hostedservice.html or from Colin Howman at colinh@src.co.uk.

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