The basic need of all law firms to dictate and transcribe important briefs is the same now as it was yesteryear. The difference, however, is today's technology has provided a quantum leap in how secure, accurate and timely basic functions can now be performed. Mark Story reports.

For law firms still using tape-based systems, the age-old problems were tapes being lost in transit or accidentally erased, and dictation being overwritten. However, with server based or digital systems, these problems are no longer an issue.

Law firm Hunt & Hunt has had server based dictation for at least 15 years. The benefits, says IT manager Sue McGrath, include the availability of a central pool of operators, who respond to transcription requests from lawyers around the country, even internationally. It also means several senior word processing (WP) staff is now able to work from home. "This provides a very flexible service for our legal practitioners," says McGrath. "It also enables our firm to retain senior administrative staff, a number of whom returned to work after taking maternity leave."

Outsourcing
Outsourcing transcription remains a more viable option for smaller firms, says McGrath, particularly barristers who can side-step set-up costs, salaries and staff overheads by accessing an on-demand service. By comparison, she says larger firms are probably better off capitalising on in-house resources and using technology to ensure the best utilisation of resources.
 
For example, DLA Phillips Fox, which has been using digital dictation for three years, is increasingly looking to shuffle data from locations between Auckland and Perth and use time-zones to regulate workflow. "While we're happy with the quality of the work we've outsourced in the past to South Africa, it was never really intended as anything more than an overflow service and we didn't have the volume to justify it," says Dylan James the firm's IT operations manager.

But it's not necessarily quality issues that put some firms off outsourcing, adds McGrath. She says while service providers can satisfy needed checks and balances with appropriate encryption technology, there's still a certain level of discomfort entrusting data to the hands of third parties.

Going digital
Having assessed next generation technology currently on offer, Hunt & Hunt recently started upgrading its technology by installing digital dictation software Winscribe within its Melbourne office. McGrath says lawyers like Winscribe's ability to show them where documents are in the queue, and move them around according to workflow priorities. "Winscribe also has the functionality to enable files to be sent to a variety of devices, including PDAs and mobile phones."

What also convinced DLA Phillips Fox to install the system over the top of its Olympus hardware platform was its suitability as an enterprise-wide solution. "That means we'll able to run reports on where work activity is, and spread utilisation to match capacity," says James. "When we compared it against the UK-based, BigHand, we found NZ-based, Winscribe to be a cheaper and better supported solution."

Meantime, Corrs Chambers Westgarth deployed digital dictation late in 2006 as an upgrade to its tape-based dictation system. After reviewing several off-the-shelf dictation management platforms the firm decided to develop an application in-house to manage dictation and transcription workflow.

The building of a bespoke application, says Corrs' CIO, Jon Kenton, allowed the firm to ensure the interface was similar to its existing desktop applications. This also decreased the learning-curve for the firm's lawyers and enhanced productivity. He says the Corrs' digital dictation application allows extra security to be placed on dictation files should a particular client or matters require it. "The solution implemented also works in Corrs remote access environment," says Kenton. "It allows dictation to be recorded from home or client offices and be transcribed ready for the lawyer when they return to the office. Alternatively, it can be emailed back allowing them to continue to work off-site."

While digital dictation provides a natural conduit to outsourced transcription, Corrs concluded that the in-house management of this process offered many benefits unavailable with an outsourced service. These benefits include the skills in-house operators have to understand complex documents, specialised client requirements, and the nuances of individual lawyers.
 
Meanwhile, most law firms are keeping a watching brief on new technology within the hand-held space. While a variety of devices, including PDAs and mobile phones have dictation capabilities, Kenton says these devices frequently lack the convenient features digital dictation handsets have, including dedicated forward and review buttons, and noise cancelling microphones.

Voice recognition
Interestingly, while 80-90% of legal practitioners use some type of dictation device, the uptake of voice recognition technology remains low. There will always be some authors who prefer to leave the end production to someone else, but law firms like Hunt & Hunt see speech recognition as the ultimate end goal. However, McGrath suspects mass migration to this technology will only happen once it's proven to be simple to set up and use, and has reached optimum accuracy.

"With the increasing mobility of lawyers, and pressure to respond to clients on a 24/7 basis, the ability to use a digital recorder, and then download and transcribe that dictation directly into Word on their own laptop really streamlines the process," says McGrath. "It also removes so many variables from the equation, like having network access available and then having an operator available to do the transcription and return the completed document; it can all be done in situ."

To date, it's estimated that only 5% of law firms have seriously embraced speech recognition, but Howard Hutchins, managing director of Diversified Dictation Systems, expects uptake to grow by 5 - 10% annually as accuracy makes the business case increasingly more compelling.

He says that Canadian-based Wordscribe/Dataworxs' and XoVox's digital dictation/speech recognition, together with a digital portable Philips 9600 makes for a leading-edge dictation and transcription solution.

Widely utilised within North America's litigiously-threatened medial sector, he says Wordscribe/Dataworxs is emerging locally and was recently installed within the Victoria Government's Solicitors Office and Institute or Forensic Medicine. "Speech recognition is one way around the three hours of transcription time it takes for every hour of dictation," says Hutchins.

While Philips Speech Processing has been in the analogue dictation business for 53 years, it's one of the early pioneers in the digital market. In addition to having its own speech recognition system, Speech Magic, Philips has also made the transition to solutions provider with the launch of its workflow, server-based product, SpeechExec Enterprise, and a PC-based version, SpeechExec Pro.

Citrix and Novell enabled, the first SpeechExec Enterprise solution was recently installed within a Perth law firm. Graeme Pearson Asia-Pacific regional manager of Philips Speech Processing advised ALB that Philips is about to launch SpeechExec Mobile to complement current range of smart phones/PDAs/Blackberry.

Dictation tomorrow
Dictation technology is continuously evolving and it's hard to tell what tomorrow's devices will look like, but Pearson offers us a glimpse of the future. According to a survey on trends and requirements conducted by Philips, reliability and user-friendliness are at the top of user's list, followed by improved data protection, faster performance and wireless solutions.

"By 2010, the use of mobile dictation solutions will be widespread. The next major evolutionary step for dictation devices is wireless file transfer," says Pearson. "But there are still several obstacles to overcome before data integrity and ease of use can be guaranteed."