What Is Legal Digital Dictation?
Did you know by switching from typing your own documents to Legal digital dictation and having these transcribed can means legal practices of all shapes and sizes, can achieve an immediate 40% efficiency saving? Enabling fee earners to do what they do best; practice law and generate income. As Tom Peters says "Do what you do best, outsource the rest".
At OutSec Legal we are here to help guide you and your practice through the process to ensure you get the best from outsourcing your legal dictation and our legal transcription & document formatting, production and editing services.
Digital Dictation: What is it?
Legal digital dictation is a method of recording speech digitally. Its main purpose is to enable it to go from speech to text via a transcriptionist, thereby enabling it to become text, which would then be manipulated into digital legal correspondence and documents.
Why Switch to Legal Digital Dictation?
Macintyre Hudson stated in their Legal Benchmarking Report for 2022, 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 do this is to encourage staff to dictate correspondence and documents to enable them to have more time and then generate more income by doing more billable hours or chargeable time.
Did you know that a Grade A Solicitor (at £512 per hour) who spends two hours typing their own documents or emails could lose their legal practice up to £721.20 in chargeable time (as opposed to dictating and using OutSec Legal? A Grade D lawyer (at £186 per hour) could lose their firm up to £232.20).
Can you imagine how much two hours a day can add up to in a year?
Why is Dictation More Efficient?
“The average person types between 38 and 40 words per minute”.
A “good rate of speech ranges between 140 -160 words per minute.”
This means that digital dictation is four times faster than we can type. Therefore, dictating a document is more cost-efficient, giving fee earners up to 40% more time to increase those all-important chargeable hours.
David Lee, IT Director at Womble Bond Dickinson said:
Can Income Generation Be Improved By Using Legal Digital dictation?
Yes. If you have a fee earner who spends two hours a day typing their own emails/documents (as opposed to using digital dictation) your practice is losing out effectively on 1.5 hours of chargeable time. This is because dictating is four times faster than typing these yourself. This time could be put to be better used elsewhere: either to increase income generation or allow fee earners to release valuable WIP and lock up.
Check out the calculation below::
Calculation
So let’s take an example of a grade A solicitor (using London rates). We would work this out as:
(a) Grade A solicitor’s lost time: £512 per hour x 1.5 hours = £768.
(b) Less OutSec Legal’s cost for transcribing 30 minutes of dictation: £1.30 x 30 = £39 plus VAT (£7.80) = £46.80
If you take (a) from (b) this gives you the cost of the lost chargeable time.
Answer
Therefore, the amount of money lost by a Grade A solicitor in London by typing his own documents is £721.20.
Using the same calculations for grades B, C and D solicitors in London:
• A grade B solicitor would lose £475,20;
• A grade C solicitor would lose £358,20; and
• A grade D solicitor would lose £232.20
In an age where law firms need to be more efficient and cost-effective, this is a big deal. Even more so, if this is occurring on a daily basis. Over the course of a year, this can represent a huge loss for law firms coming from a single fee earner.
The more fee earners you have typing their own documents and emails, and not using digital dictation to dictate them, the more money your practice is losing. The same goes for those using case management systems for bespoke emails, letters or documents.
Why Use OutSec Legal To Transcribe Your Legal Digital Dictation?
OutSec Legal offer Free Consultancy
We know that the prospect of changing your practice’s way of working can be daunting. At OutSec Legal we specialise in making the transition to digital dictation and outsourced legal transcription easy. Therefore, at the start of every partnership, we offer a period of free consultancy that enables us to help your practice streamline its processes to ensure you get the most out of our digital dictation and legal transcription services.
No Digital Dictation Software Needed!
With OutSec Legal you do not need to purchase any specialist legal digital dictation software OutSec Legal have its own digital dictation app. However, if you use digital dictation recorders, we can integrate with it too.
OutSec Legal Can be Integrated With Most Leading Digital Dictation Software Platforms
We can integrate with leading legal digital dictation software platforms for digital dictation machines and recorders such as BigHand, Dictamen, Olympus ODMS and Philips Speechwrite.
What Equipment/Hardware Do I Need?
Our digital dictation app, is free for customers to use. All you need is a smartphone or tablet and you can use your device as a digital dictation recorder.
You can also use the app on macOS providing it has Apple Silicon (i.e. a new M1, M2 chip etc) and has an in-built microphone or external microphone.
Our free digital dictation app enables files to be sent to us securely from your device.
Alternatively, you can use a digital Dictaphone and upload the files via your PC, Mac or Chromebook to our secure FileManager website.
Want to Change from Analogue Dictation to Digital Dictation?
The switch to digital does not need to be expensive. It can be as easy as using your existing smartphone or tablet and using our free dictation app, meaning there is no expensive outlay for transcription software, and dictaphones.
A Trusted UK Legal Digital Dictation Company
Secure Legal Digital Dictation & 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?
-
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.;
-
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 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;
-
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.