Hewitsons Solicitors
Top 100 law firm and top five in East Anglia generates new business advantage with DigiScribe-XL digital dictation
Hewitsons Solicitors is a leading UK law firm with a national and international reputation across the spectrum of legal specialisms. In 2004, the firm selected DigiScribe-XL digital dictation and workflow management system after the successful completion of a pilot installation that showed a clear decrease in document turnaround time. DigiScribe-XL has since been rolled-out company-wide to offices in Cambridge, Northampton and Saffron Walden.
Analogue to Digital
"The advantages of moving from analogue to digital dictation will allow our fee earners to easily edit, distribute and prioritise work" explains Tolan Collins, IT Manager, Hewitsons Solicitors. "With DigiScribe-XL we have eliminated the disadvantages of analogue dictation; such as poor sound quality, lost and broken tapes etc, and added a wealth of unique functionalities that will help us improve practice management and cut administrative costs."
Gaining New Efficiency
"Digital dictation is an indispensable tool for the successful, modern law firm. By streamlining internal processes, DigiScribe-XL impacts positively on service quality, putting us in a position to provide our clients with highly accurate documents as quickly as possible", says Tolan Collins. The 14 fee-earners and 11 secretaries from the Commercial Property department involved in the pilot project handle a dictation volume of 75 jobs per day. These dictations are automatically allocated over the network to the corresponding secretary. Crystal-clear digital sound quality, a transparent job list and the real-time forwarding of the dictation to the secretary have already resulted in the reduction of transcription time.
Facilitating On-the-Move Dictation
DigiScribe-XL supports both desktop-based and mobile dictation devices, further increasing the independence and mobility of Hewitsons' fee-earners, as Collins explains: "Our fee-earners have started working remotely, dictating from home or from any of our three offices, further contributing to the productivity and efficiency gain in our firm. Crescendo was the only vendor who offered IP-based workflow management , using voice streaming to transfer the voice files over to the secretary in real-time while ensuring that files are not duplicated or stored on a local computer at any time. This was another critical factor in our decision, given the deadline-driven, highly confidential nature of our data."
Accelerating Market Momentum
"This deal represents a significant step forward in one of the world's major markets for legal technology and has significantly strengthened the position of Crescendo among the top-players in the digital dictation market", says Costa Mandilaras, President, Crescendo Systems Corporation. "We are very proud that, after extensive evaluation, Hewitsons has decided to pilot and now implement DigiScribe-XL."
