Seddons Solicitors
London-based law firm puts an end to transcription backlogs with DigiScribe-XL digital dictation
Real-time dictation, central data management and system scalability reduce transcription outsourcing while allowing for a flexible and secure document workflow.
London-based Seddons Solicitors provide legal advice and services to commercial and private clients in the UK and internationally. The firm's clients value the fact that legal advice is combined with clear business-oriented thinking. This is why Seddons' financial controller and HR manager are often involved in assisting clients on the practical matters that arise within the framework of legal services. The firm's strong client orientation is bolstered by a range of added-value services, including an online newsroom, e-mail bulletins, seminars and a case-tracker facility. "There's too much choice in the market today," says Simon Ross, who is a Partner at Seddons. "We have to go beyond the pure legal advice to professionally service our clients." One of the challenges lies in handling immense documentation volumes and providing accurate legal documents quickly. To optimise dictation and transcription, Seddons therefore implemented DigiScribe-XL from Crescendo.
Previously, the firm's 38 solicitors dictated onto tapes that were then passed on to a team of 15 secretaries for transcription. But tapes can get lost or damaged, and secretaries can have problems managing their workload, since only full tapes are passed on for transcription. "There's no way of knowing if the tape contains an important letter that has to be transcribed promptly," says Pamela Twining, one of the firm's secretaries. The analogue process is complex, and does not allow jobs to be distributed according to individual workloads. Some of the secretaries were struggling to avoid backlogs, while others were waiting for new tapes to arrive.
Embracing digital technology with DigiScribe-XL
Seddons piloted DigiScribe-XL from Crescendo in the litigation team in February 2005. Initially, the firm was skeptical - not about the product itself, but about the fact that a fundamental process was about to be changed. "Introducing new technology on a large scale requires professional change management," explains Daniel. The pilot allowed him to present a working installation to the rest of the firm and demonstrate a concept that everybody could understand. "Digital dictation builds on familiar working procedures, whilst bringing a wealth of additional benefits," he explains. This quickly eliminated any concerns among the staff. The system was expanded firm-wide in May 2005.
Today, the users are enthusiastic. "I'm very pleased with the system," says Graham Honey. "I've taken to it like a duck to water," comments Simon Ross. And Pamela Twining finds that DigiScribe-XL is "much better, clearer and faster" than the previous analogue system.
"Crescendo has the resources and the commitment to meet all our requirements. Change requests are dealt with in no more than a day. This creates a very robust and reliable solution, eliminating most of the hassles one usually has with new software," Daniel explains. In addition, the system seems to be very easy to adapt to. Daniel spends at most 15 minutes with individual training. Graham Honey, a lawyer with the firm, describes himself as "not very computer literate," so if anybody were to have a problem, it would be him. But so far there has been none.
The secretaries, asked about any difficulties in adapting to the new system, gave a very clear answer: "None. There's nothing to learn." They are pleased with the benefits of digital technology and the improvements in their workflows. The sound quality is much better and they can immediately see the type of each document. This allows them to work on letters first, while keeping file notes or memos for off-peak hours. "We handle all client correspondence first, which enhances the company's professional image among our clients," says Pamela. Lawyers can choose between three urgency levels, clearly indicating which documents need to go out first.
The DigiPlayer-IP module, which plays back the dictation files, has been integrated as a simple toolbar in Microsoft® Word, avoiding the need to switch between applications and allowing the secretaries to adjust volume and playback speed to their individual preferences. Playback is controlled via a foot pedal.
Once a dictation is finished, it immediately appears on the secretaries' job list. The secretary chooses a job from the dictation list and either reserves it or returns it to the pool. This is useful if a secretary is about to leave the office and doesn't want to start transcribing a complex and long dictation. Now that all secretaries share a common platform, they work much more as a team. "We can easily cover for each other in the case of holidays or sickness, because we can access each other's work." A finished job is automatically saved and locked in the case management system. "We are now much faster," Pamela says.
The in-house transcription team is supported by external, UK-based service providers. "We try to use internal transcription as much as possible," explains Daniel, "But in peak times, jobs are routed to the external service provider." Dealing with a UK-based company, which is also using the DigiPlayer-IP module, gave the firm enough confidence to allow restricted access to their case management system via VPN. Thus external Secretaries can work in the same way as their in-house colleagues and save each document directly to the client's file in the case management system.
Secure, real-time, remote dictation for greater flexibility
Two lawyers work from home. They used to send in tapes by courier, wait for transcription and then have the documents returned to them at home. With DigiDictate-IP, the real-time dictation module in DigiScribe-XL, the lawyers can now dictate straight onto the firm's dictation server. The professionally protected and administered Crescendo Wide Area Service (CWAS) ensures that all voice files are stored centrally, leaving zero footprint on the local laptops. This is critical for data confidentiality, as laptops are vulnerable. CWAS uses advanced file compression so that files can be streamed between the server and the local computer, even with very narrow VPN connections. "I've never had any complaints about speed," says Daniel. The home-based lawyers can now work in the same way as their colleagues in the firm.
Investing in the future
Daniel is already looking into further exploiting the benefits of DigiScribe-XL. DigiPlayer-IP will soon be integrated into the firm's time recording workflow, allowing transcription time to be accurately invoiced and having a positive impact on the firm's revenues.
"Crescendo offers a future-proof system, leaving the decision to us as to how far and how fast we would like to proceed," Daniel says. "We are even looking into adding speech recognition, which is actually part of DigiScribe-XL, but which has not yet been implemented in our firm. But most important is that we can rest assured that our investments in this technology are well protected and that we will benefit from this superb system for a very long time."
- DigiScribe-XL has accelerated the transcription of dictations, reducing outsourcing by 25%
- Dictating directly onto the computer guarantees the highest level of data security, as no files can be lost or accessed by unauthorised persons, as is the danger with cassettes
- The CWAS server enables real-time streaming of voice files, so that all files are stored centrally, leaving zero footprint on local laptops and PCs
- Secretaries share a common job-list, which allows them to access each other's work and better coordinate individual workloads
- Jobs can be routed to external transcription teams during peak dictation times
- Future-proof system can be expanded to other offices and allows speech recognition to be added
