Lawyer at court - what are the benefits of legal transcription and outsourcing

What are the Benefits of Outsourcing Legal Transcription?

It is fair to say that legal practices and law firms have started to move with the times and are embracing different ways of working. This includes outsourcing work to businesses that support law firms. These would include IT, accounting, marketing, as well as legal transcription firms. After all, law firms have always outsourced work whether it be for barristers’ opinions, advocacy or costs drafting.

Outsourcing these key process-based functions has allowed practices to concentrate on what they do best; practice law and generate income.

When we think of outsourcing services like legal transcription, we often only think about the cost savings that will be achieved by getting work done at a lower cost, like legal transcription. However, most law firms overlook a wealth of other benefits that can be gained from outsourcing services like legal transcription, IT, accounting and other business functions.

So, What Are The Benefits of Legal Transcription?

It Helps You Increase Productivity

With the advent of the personal computer, it was believed by some law firms that having fee earners type their own documents they were actually saving money on employing typists. However, legal practices are waking up to the fact that they are losing out on chargeable time as a result as typing is much slower than the ability to speak (and dictate).

In Macintyre Hudson's Legal Benchmarking Report for 2022, it stated that income generation for law firms and legal practices: could be improved by removing administrative tasks from fee earners, to enable them to generate more income.

One way to achieve this is by encouraging fee earners to dictate correspondence and documents to enable them to have more time to generate income. This in turn allows them to increase their chargeable or billable time and improve on their targets.

Whilst case management systems have improved productivity, having solicitors and other fee earning staff type bespoke correspondence, emails or amending lengthy legal documents via case management systems means that even here, fee earners are not working as productively as they could.

Legal practices, therefore, need to think differently when it comes to efficiency and productivity because at the end of the day, time does mean money. Whilst time, is a valuable community for any business it is even more so for law firms where charge-out rates are high.

Why is Dictation More Efficient than Typing?

Firstly we all speak faster than anyone can physically type. So speaking wins when it comes to being the most efficient of the two. We just need to look at these stats to see the difference:

“The average person types between 38 and 40 words per minute” and a “good rate of speech ranges between 140 -160 words per minute.”

Secondly, a fee earner's charge out rate will always be higher than an outsourced legal typist's rate for doing the same task. It is better for a law firm that the fee earner is generating income than typing a document that someone else can type quicker and at less cost.

Simply dictating legal documents, correspondence and emails gives fee earners up to 40% more time to increase income generation, and improve those all-important chargeable hours. So let us take a real-world example below.

Lost Chargeable Time

If we look at a fee earner typing for two hours, what chargeable time has been lost after you deduct OutSec Legal's costs of transcribing your legal digital dictation file?

If we take court approved rates for Solicitors in London:

Taking the highest grade, a Grade A Solicitor (rate: £512 per hour) who spends two hours typing their own emails, could lose their legal practice up to £721.20 in chargeable time (as opposed to dictating and outsourcing the digital dictation to OutSec Legal).

If we take a Grade D lawyer (rate: £186 per hour) by spending two hours typing their own emails they could lose their firm up to £232.20.

Imagine therefore how much two hours daily could add up yearly coming from one fee earner and then think about the same amount across your whole practice.

This is what MacIntyre Hudson was alluding to in their Legal Benchmarking Report for 2022. So, is it not time to think about outsourcing your legal transcription needs What other benefits are there to outsourcing?

Well, we shall discuss these below.

What Are The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Legal Transcription?

There are many benefits of outsourcing your legal transcription apart from the obvious ones, below are just a few.

Access to Highly Experienced Legal Transcriptionists When You Need them

Here at OutSec Legal we believe in having highly experienced legal transcriptionists. Therefore, every member of OutSec’s legal transcriptionist team has had over 10 years of experience in the legal sector.

Holiday Pay

Most employers in the UK give considerably more holidays to their employees than the statutory 28 paid holiday days,

Indeed UK employers tend to be more generous:, “the average UK holiday entitlement including public holidays is 33.5 days – that’s more than a week above the statutory minimum”.

Obviously, by outsourcing your legal transcription needs, you eliminate this cost to your law firm or legal practice.

Changes a Fixed Cost into a Flexible Cost

Many law firms and legal practices recognise that replacing a static fixed cost with a flexible outsourced legal transcription provider has many positives. Clearly, if your legal typing requirements are low, then the costs are low. However, support can be upscaled as the law firm or legal practices grows or in times when workloads are usually high. OutSec Legal can expand (as well as contract) with your firm's needs rather than being constricted by the fixed cost of employed staff and replacing it with a variable one most suited to your practices' ebb and flow.

OutSec Legal can offer support by either acting as a complete, secure, outsourced legal transcription solution or as an overflow outsourced transcription solution, allowing your legal practice to keep up client and business demand.

Business Continuity Planning

Businesses around the world in 2020 had their business continuity plans truly put to the test, as Covid-19 swept the globe.

Whilst some law firms and legal practices were forced to close their doors when lockdowns came into effect, OutSec Legal continued to operate as normal.

OutSec Legal were able to support our existing clients as well as those clients that needed additional support together with new clients who needed our help, during this trying and difficult time. As one of our clients stated: “We are so glad that we have you as it certainly makes it less stressful not having to worry about getting typing completed. I know some firms are really struggling if staff cannot get in”.

Using OutSec Legal creates a business continuity solution for your legal practice to enable your business to continue to access experienced legal typing support that expands (or contracts) with your firm’s specific needs. It enables fee earning staff to access support if they are working from home.

You can also use OutSec Legal for upscaling support as the firm grows, without the need for employing additional typing staff (or indeed, any of the employment costs or risks thereof).

Eliminate the Need for Temporary Legal Secretaries or Typists

As any Practice Manager or Senior Partner knows, the need for temporary legal transcriptionists or secretaries can easily fluctuate over time. We know that staff are likely to take the majority of their holiday entitlement in the summer months than in winter.

Unfortunately, it is harder for legal practices to predict unexpected illnesses. We can, of course, predict that in the winter months someone may come to work with a cold (and in a matter of days, everyone has come down with it!). This is especially true for those who work in open-plan offices.

Environmental factors such as snow, or other extreme weather events, can also result in staff being unable to make it into the office. However, now with cold, flu and Covid-19 to deal with, winter month staffing levels might be harder to predict than previously.

By using OutSec Legal, you can access a legal secretary, legal typist or legal transcriptionist in times of staff absence, whether it is through illness or extreme weather, reducing the need of using expensive temporary staff to bridge the gap at a cheaper cost. This is yet another advance of outsourcing your legal transcription needs.

Can OutSec Legal Integrate and Run In Tandem With Your In-House Staff?

If you wish to retain all or part of your secretarial or admin team, we can still integrate to work seamlessly, so when workloads are high or you need additional assistance, we are here to help.

Most of our legal transcription team have qualifications such as the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Legal Secretary certification or CILEX qualifications and diplomas.

OutSec Legal's transcriptionist team are one of the best in the industry. They are available to you and your legal practice at the touch of a button.

If you are struggling:

to find a legal secretary, typist or transcriptionist with the right experience?

struggling with a backlog of work?

Why not use OutSec Legal? You can have an experienced legal transcriptionist, legal typist or secretary available to you and your legal practice at the touch of a button; when you need one. OutSec Legal can expand to meet your needs or contract when workloads are low. This is the joy of outsourcing your legal transcription on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Reduces Costs

Employing staff means additional costs. You must pay: monthly salaries, PAYE costs, National Insurance contributions, offer a pension scheme and pay a certain percentage of tax per employee.

Employement also has other fixed costs such as desk space and office costs per employee, and the costs of infrastructure like computers, telephones, workspaces etc.

Outsourcing your legal transcription clearly reduces these costs to your legal practice.

Unproductive Time

One of the indirect costs of employment is “unproductive” time. That time when people are in the office chatting with colleagues or making a cup of tea. Recent research in the US suggests that:

“In an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours 53 minutes”.

Clearly, by outsourcing your legal transcription needs, you eliminate any unproductive time. By using OutSec Legal, you pay per minute of recorded dictation (rounded up to the nearest minute) which means you are not paying for any unproductive time.

Presenteeism

Evidence from one UK survey, just prior to the pandemic, showed that 80% of workers said presenteeism existed in their workplace, with a quarter of those surveyed saying it had become worse since the previous year.

As reported by the BBC, presenteeism has simply gone digital after the pandemic. With more and more people working longer than ever, responding to emails and messages at all hours of the day to show how 'engaged' they are.

We know that presenteeism it can cost a nation's economy tens of billions of dollars. Outsourcing elements of your service, means this becomes someone else's burden meaning you are not paying for unproductive time here either.

Reduces Expensive Office Space

If you are thinking of reducing expensive office space following the Covid-19 pandemic, then this benefit might be useful. Obviously, by outsourcing your legal transcription needs, you can reduce the amount of office space you need as you need fewer staff onsite.

According to Office Finder, it’s best to allow about 175 sq ft per person. Partners usually require between 200 and 400 sq ft. Open office workstations require 100 sq ft.

In an article from Business Matters Magazine they stated that “The average cost to rent an office space per person, per month is between £650 and £1,500." in London back in 2019.

Therefore, this means that the cost of desk space in London back in 2019 was somewhere between £7,800 to £18,000 per annum which can be spent elsewhere.

If you wish to calculate how much office rental space costs per sq ft in your London Borough this interesting article gives details of costs in 2023.

Reduces HR Costs

When you employ staff you know they come with additional costs. You have to train them, you need to supervise these, and these are all at additional cost to the firm, and require the investment of a solicitor’s or practice manager’s time. There are costs in recruitment in advertising for qualified legal secretaries, legal typists and legal transcriptionists.

Outsourcing eliminates all the above costs and the costs associated with conducting annual appraisals. It also eliminates the expense of grievance meetings or disciplinary hearings should you have issues with an employee

By outsourcing your legal transcription, you will never have to worry about any of these HR-related costs and heartaches ever again.

Sickness Absence

According to the UK National Office of Statistics, an:

“estimated 141.4 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in the UK in 2018, the equivalent to 4.4 days per worker“.

In the UK, the most common reasons for sickness absences were:

Minor illnesses;
Mental health conditions;
Musculoskeletal problems.

Again, outsourcing eliminates the costs of sickness absence.

Does Outsourcing Legal Transcription Benefit All Types of Legal Practices?

The simple answer is yes.

Outsourcing some (or all) of your legal transcription benefits practitioners and legal practices of all shapes and sizes.

It is the perfect solution for sole practitioners, barristers, law costs draftsmen, mediators and small boutique law firms, who need typing assistance on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Our outsourced legal transcription service provides a cheaper alternative to employment (and its associated costs).

OutSec Legal is the ideal solution to provide additional support when demand is high. As a result, there is no longer the need to employ temporary staff for holiday or illness cover.

Medium to large law firms or barristers chambers, for example, use OutSec Legal to:

Reduce secretarial staff (completely or partially). As a consequence, this reduces the need for expensive office space;

Provide an effective solution to enable your fee-earning staff to work remotely. (Or to enable you to offer attractive flexible working). Thus providing further opportunities to reduce expensive office space or increase your fee earner headcount;

Provide additional support to meet demand at times of high workloads. The beauty of OutSec is that it can flex to meet your business demands, quickly and easily;

Provide a business continuity solution to enable law firms to access secretarial staff in times of absence. Or for upscaling support as the firm grows without the need for employing additional staff.

What Makes Outsec Legal Different to Other Transcription Companies?

OutSec Legal has been designed from the ground up to provide services that legal practices want and need.

OutSec Legal only transcribe legal digital dictation sound files. We do not transcribe files from any other business sector. This makes our offering unique from other transcription companies in the market, where work is often farmed out randomly to huge banks of typists (none of whom have ever worked in the legal sector).

At OutSec we believe in having dedicated legal transcriptionists. Consequently, for each fee earner, we would allocate two experienced legal secretaries, legal typists or legal transcriptionists to carry out their work. All our transcriptionists have at least 10 years of experience in the legal sector. This allows your dedicated typists to build a bond, in the same way as an in-house secretary would.

Our legal secretaries, legal typists and legal transcriptionists know how legal documents are laid out. Our legal transcriptionist team know how documents in civil proceedings are required to be laid out as required by part 5 of the CPR. They know what rule a Solicitor's letter goes under when writing to an incarcerated prisoner at His Majesty's pleasure.

This is why legal transcription work should be typed by experienced and trained legal transcriptionists. This is because they know how documents should be set out. They know Latin terminology and legal jargon.

With other outsourced legal transcription companies there may be minimum spends, account charges or hidden fees.

With OutSec Legal there is no minimum spend. Accounts are free to open. There are no monthly fees or hidden charges. You are charged on a per-minute basis (rounded up to the nearest minute).

Making us one of the most attractive offerings in the legal transcription market.

A Trusted UK Legal Transcription Company

Secure Legal Transcription

Quality Legal Transcriptions

Guaranteed Turnaround Times

Frequently Asked Questions

At OutSec Legal, we are always happy to answer any questions you may have.

That is why we have put together a searchable set of frequently asked questions just for you:

Would using speech-to-text software not be quicker?

Unfortunately, speech-to-text software still struggles with accuracy. There are also concerns regarding the security of recordings and the processing of these. You may recall the article in the Guardian about Apple where we learned that: "Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information". And it wasn't just Apple: Google "admitted that contractors can access recordings made by Assistant, after some of its recordings were leaked". Here at OutSec Legal, we have developed our own app for you to record and upload your audio transcription files securely and easily to us. Our professional legal transcriptionists will provide you with a more accurate transcription than you could obtain via speech-to-text software and they are covered by our confidentiality contracts. So with OutSec, you know who is processing your data and that it will be safe.
How will you keep my data secure?

OutSec Legal has been transcribing confidential digital recordings and legal digital dictation files securely for over 20 years. Our software has been developed around stringent encryption standards required by the legal services sector. We are registered with the ICO. OutSec Legal are also Cyber Essentials certified, which is required by all contractors who contract with UK Gov. OutSec Legal leverage the Amazon/AWS Cloud to provide a highly secure and geo-redundant infrastructure, which provides the resilience and availability demanded by modern-day businesses. OutSec also ensures that every client transaction is protected with the latest SSL security. OutSec’s FileManager system is password encrypted, with each client having their own username and password. The OutSec servers are secured using the latest encryption protocols: Simplified disaster recovery and automatic failover Encryption at rest and in-transit Encrypted data transfer (256-bit using a 2048-bit key) SHA-2 hashing for all certificates. TLS cryptology.
What if I need help or support?

You are able to contact OutSec Legal by email, phone and even by Skype. We will be happy to speak to you and provide you with any help or support that you need in using our service.
Why is OutSec Legal the leading UK legal transcription company in the industry?

OutSec Legal has been designed from the ground up to provide services which law firms, barristers' chambers and other legal practices want and need. OutSec Legal only transcribe legal digital dictation audio and video files to offer our unique set of services. These include legal transcription (single voice or multi voice) as well as legal document production, formatting and editing services. OutSec Legal only transcribe files from legal practices, they do not transcribe files from other sectors. This makes our offering unique from other transcription companies in the market, where work is farmed out randomly to huge banks of typists (none of which have ever worked in the legal sector). At OutSec we believe in having dedicated legal typists, transcriptionists and secretaries. Consequently, for each fee earner, we would allocate two experienced legal typists, transcriptionists or secretaries to carry out their work. All our transcriptionists have at least 10 years of experience in the legal sector. This allows your dedicated legal transcriptionists to build a bond, in the same way as an in-house secretary would. Our legal transcriptionist team and our legal document production, formatting and editing team know exactly how legal documents should be laid out. This is because most have CILEX or legal secretarial qualifications in addition to their experience meaning they are the best in the industry. Our passion for excellence and an eye for detail, alongside financial investment in the very latest technology, ensure OutSec Legal provide a first-class service with data security and confidentiality at the forefront. Our close working relationship with our clients ensures that the OutSec Legal experience is one of excellence and a natural extension of your existing office.

However, if you have any additional questions why not get in touch.

What Makes OutSec Legal The Best Legal Transcription Service & Legal Document Production Service in the UK?

With OutSec Legal there is no need for expensive dictation equipment;
OutSec Legal offers a free dictation app to customers. This allows legal dictation files to be recorded on your smartphone or tablet;
With OutSec Legal there are no contracts, no monthly fees, no minimum spends or hidden fees. The service is on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning you are in control;
OutSec Legal has been designed exclusively for the legal sector to offer the best quality remote legal typing and legal document production, formatting and editing services at cost-effective pricing;
OutSec Legal's services are perfect for sole practitioners, barristers, mediators, law costs draftsmen, law firms, in-house legal departments and barrister's chambers;
OutSec Legal are GDPR compliant;
OutSec Legal are Cyber Essentials certified which is assessed independently;
OutSec Legal only use experienced legal secretaries, legal copy typists, notetakers, minute takers, legal document production and editing specialists, all of whom have signed strict confidentiality agreements with us.

We can also work directly with your existing case management software such as Proclaim, ALB, Ochresoft, Intelliworks, LEAP, Visualfiles and many more;
OutSec Legal can integrate with leading digital dictation software platforms such as BigHand, Dictamen, Olympus ODMS and Philips Speechwrite;
OutSec Legal is based in the United Kingdom and is a UK-registered company;
OutSec Legal offers copy typing, fix and format, file conversion and legal authoring services to name but a few.
OutSec Legal provides itemised billing each month, so you know what you have spent and when;
OutSec Legal are able to work with your existing legal precedents, legal templates or lists of standard paragraphs;
Our document production specialists can even improve upon existing templates or precedents for you to improve productivity;
OutSec Legal offers multi-voice transcription. We can transcribe recorded remote meetings and provide Zoom transcription., Microsoft Teams transcription & Skype transcription;