SRC, the exclusive WinScribe Platinum partner, today announced that it has rolled out the WinScribe digital dictation solution to over 400 fee earners and secretaries at Top 50 law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse. The new digital technology, deployed and supported by SRC will enable Field Fisher Waterhouse to meet their objective of enabling fee earners and secretaries to increase their productivity, and so improve the service they offer to clients by speeding up document turnaround times.

The roll out is already proving to be a success for Field Fisher Waterhouse as employees now have more visibility of their workloads and can more effectively work as a team.

Speaking about the roll-out, Field Fisher Waterhouse, Head of IT, Mabel Evans said, “Whilst implementing the SRC WinScribe system we have set ourselves some challenging objectives for improving productivity for the future in the way documents are created here at Field Fisher Waterhouse. From a technology stand point the WinScribe solution offered the most robust, efficient and easy to use option. Another benefit for the project was that SRC could provide a comprehensive suite of services to enable a smooth deployment of both hardware and software.”

As well as the digital dictation system, SRC also delivered Philips SpeechMikes and portable devices to enable fee earners to maintain productivity whilst away from the office. The WinScribe solution also enables fee earners to send dictations for transcription from any PC that has an Internet connection and to dictate direct to WinScribe over the phone.

“The partnership with SRC will give us full access to their expertise and leading-edge capability and services, to help us continuously improve and streamline working practices and enable us to work more closely with our European offices,” continued Mabel Evans.

SRC CEO, Chris Hart added, “It is clear that Field Fisher Waterhouse were looking for a solution which would be easy to implement, be embraced by the fee earners and secretaries and deliver clear business benefits. We are delighted to be working so closely with the firm to achieve these goals.”

Case Management software specialist, Eclipse Legal Systems, has announced the latest developments to its Proclaim software system (used by over 6,000 UK legal professionals).  The developments incorporate new communication methods being embraced by the profession, and expand the range of correspondence types catered for by Proclaim.

 Sound file compatibility

Proclaim® is now fully compatible with sound files (e.g .wav), and can import, store, and export audio clips.  Originally implemented as part of Eclipse’s work in creating integration with BigHand’s digital dictation software, sound file compatibility now enables case handlers to store and utilise audio files in the same way as any other document type (.doc, .xls, etc).

Video file compatibility

In addition, Proclaim® will also shortly be able to utilise the ‘mp4’ file format for import, storage and export of video files.  The feature will prove invaluable for a range of uses, including footage of accident scenes, medical claims, etc and complements Proclaim®’s existing image file compatibility.

2-way text messaging

In an extension of Proclaim®’s existing SMS Text Messaging functionality, the system can now accept replies to text messages, as well as simply sending them.  Replies to messages sent by law firms (which can also be branded with the firm’s name) can be incepted straight into the relevant case history to ensure integrity of the complete chain of solicitor / client correspondence.

Charles Christian has an interesting article here on the response from nFlow regarding the annoucement from Bighand of the availability of their Blackberry digital dictation solution.

ISYS® Search Software (www.isys-search.com), a global supplier of enterprise search solutions for business and government have nnounced Simpson & Marwick Solicitors has selected ISYS:desktop for use within its litigation support system.

Simpson & Marwick scans all documents associated with its law practice to a network drive. All documents are then converted to searchable PDFs, which are indexed by ISYS’ search technology. ISYS enables users to search for files directly via the ISYS:desktop application, or through CaseMap’s Case Analysis tool, where ISYS is also embedded.

ISYS provides Simpson & Marwick with navigational tools for PDF files such as categorization, entity detection, hit-highlighting, hit-to-hit navigation and Quick View, for viewing just the relevant portions of large documents.

Additional ISYS features valuable to Simpson & Marwick include:

Intuitive Interface -- the firm often requires external ISYS access, but needs training to be kept at a minimum.
ISYS’ SDK -- allowing the firm to build better links between CaseMap and ISYS.
Security Controls -- giving flexibility, yet adhering to specific security rules set up by the firm’s administrators.
Cost -- alternative systems were priced significantly higher.

London general practice, Vizards Tweedie (Vizards), is bucking the trend for firms outsourcing support work overseas to save money, as it finds keeping work in the UK through outsourced transcription specialist, Voicepath, results in happier fee earners, a better quality of work and comparable reductions in fixed costs.

The firm, which is the result of a recent merger between Vizard Oldham and Tweedie & Prideaux, first began considering where efficiencies could be made as it upgraded its IT systems ahead of a moving into a single office.

Senior partner, Ron Perry, comments: “We quickly realised that, with digital dictation organising and distributing work, it didn’t really matter if the typist sat at the next desk or hundreds of miles away.  And with each square foot of a London office commanding a high price, it made strong commercial sense for us to engineer a situation in which we could house more fee earners and outsource a greater proportion of support work.”

Initially, the firm selected a South African outsourced transcription company as its principal supplier, but soon found the service had limitations.  Ron continues: “While there was a minimal time difference compared with sending the work to somewhere like India, we found that cultural factors still had an impact on the quality of transcriptions we received.  Little things like typists not being able to spell ‘Piccadilly’ proved annoying, especially when we had paid the supplier a premium to give each document a second proofreading.

“More signficiantly, we also encountered a certain amount of internal resistance from fee earners, who had ethical reservations about sending work abroad.  They felt that such work should be retained in the UK.”

With these factors in mind, Vizards turned to UK-based legal transcription specialist, Voicepath, for an alternative service.  Voicepath uses a countrywide network of home-based teleworkers to provide law firms with a high quality, cost-effective service in which transcriptions are completed and returned in around one or 24 hours, depending on their urgency.

Voicepath was also able to offer Vizards a solution which integrated seamlessly with its own internal processes – particularly the iManage document management system which it uses to keep track of all firm documents.  A high level of integration means Voicepath’s typists – all of whom are experienced legal secretaries – can type directly into Vizards’ systems and append documents with profile information for audit trail purposes.  This means that even outsourced documents completed hundreds of miles away never leave Vizards’ internal systems.

With the Voicepath service in place and bedded in, Vizards is already feeling significant benefits.  Ron adds: “We’re happy to report that not only does Voicepath provide a fast, quality service but it’s also one our fee earners are much happier about using.  While they accept that outsourcing may result in fewer secretarial jobs in London, the fact the work remains in the UK means someone in this country will still be employed to do it.

“Essentially, we are finding that outsourcing allows us to bill more per workstation.  These are precisely the kind of efficiencies which we need to make while merging what were two firms into one. Furthermore, it gives us a better chance of keeping our overheads under control and profitable in an increasingly competitive legal market.”

Firms looking for a an IT system to help with the introduction of Home Information Packs which are launching very shortly will be interested to know that Solicitors Case Management Systems are offering their new HIPs package free of charge to firms purchasing their case management system before the end of July 2007. More details here.

PaperIQ have just launched Enterprise Digital Dictation for BlackBerry® smartphones in partnership with BigHand3.

Enterprise Digital Dictation for BlackBerry allows users to record, edit and play back digital dictations on their BlackBerry smartphone and immediately upload them wirelessly into their BigHand3 Server for flexible workflow routing and office-based transcription. It supports users on BlackBerry® Enterprise Server and BlackBerry® Internet Service and the solution makes extensive use of BlackBerry Enterprise Server's IT policies to make deployment and configuration straight forward.

James Shannon, Technical Director at PaperIQ, comments “PaperIQ looks for opportunities to develop applications that integrate with and complement existing enterprise systems that leverage the BlackBerry wireless solution. Our partnership with BigHand allows us to deliver a powerful application that gives BigHand customers, many of whom have already deployed BlackBerry smartphones, the opportunity to truly mobilize their users, thereby increasing productivity and reducing the number of devices they carry. The integration therefore allows these enterprises to gain even greater value from their existing investments in mobile and digital dictation technology. We’ve identified further synergies between enterprise digital dictation and our digital pen & paper products and expect the partnership to yield further innovation in this area over the coming months.”

David Fryer, CEO at BigHand, comments “Over 500 professional services firms worldwide utilize BigHand3 Digital Dictation on an Enterprise-wide basis, and our research showed a large proportion of them use BlackBerry smartphones. Our partnership with PaperIQ will provide a high level of technical expertise for our clients on BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service , and augment a mobility offering that is now second to none among our competitors. Both PaperIQ and BigHand place a high importance on continual innovation, and this is set to be reinforced with further enhancements of our offering for BlackBerry smartphones already planned for later this year.”

A fully-functional single-user version of the Digital Dictation application is available for download from http://blackberry.paperiq.com/dictate. 

PaperIQ also offer digital pen technology for use the the Blackberry which allows handwritten meeting notes, faxes and emails to be sent via the Blackberry.