R E S E A R C H - legalsupportnetwork.co.uk€¦ · · 2013-03-06R E S E A R C H The Voice of...

R E S E A R C H

The Voice of Reason:

Digital dictation and associated voice technologies are enabling law firms to satisfy clients’ requirements for quick turnaround times and value for money advice.

in association with

The voice of reason

New technologies are playing a pivotal role in modern legal practice with BigHand’s voice productivity platform being a prime example of a product that boosts productivity and satis-fies clients’ requirements for quick turnaround times and value-for-money advice

Executive summary

Over the last decade, technology has completely transformed the way lawyers and law firms operate. Much of this transformation has occurred through devices, such as smart-phones, that allow lawyers to maximise their time spent outside of the office. In addition, firms are savvier in allocating work, prioritising it, monitoring it and responding to clients more quickly. It has resulted in a step-change in legal services.

With lawyers able to work more effectively from outside of the office and with firms having the internal systems to discharge work more efficiently, there is a genuine ability to boost client satisfaction. At the same time firms have been able to sustain or enhance profit-ability even in a challenging economic climate.

BigHand’s voice productivity platform is a prime example of how firms are able to leverage and exploit their own existing devices. The platform enables firms to deliver a quicker and more cost-effective service to clients while making more efficient utilisation of lawyers, secretaries and support staff.

BigHand’s voice productivity platform has been adopted by a multitude of law firms glob-ally and it is gaining real traction in mainland Europe.

As firms increasingly recognise the true power of devices including smartphones and tab-lets, they are turning to business applications such as BigHand’s voice productivity plat-form to transform the processes involved in day-to-day legal practice.

The evolution of voice technologies

The traditional method of dictating into a tape-based recording device and then handing over that tape to a secretary for transcription is quickly disappearing. Tapes are prone to becoming lost or damaged and must be physically transported back to the office for a sec-retary to transcribe into a document. Digital dictation devices removed the transportation issue, but still have to be physically docked and files uploaded.

The use of smartphones has completely altered the use of voice technologies. Lawyers can instantly upload voice files from wherever they may be and with systems such as BigHand’s voice productivity platform these files can be monitored and prioritised accord-ing to a client’s requirements.

Ralf Kaiser, head of IT at Hengeler Mueller, comments: ‘Clients are really demanding a re-sponse in a short time. That is key for our business.’

With law firms taking a more business minded approach to legal services, their focus on efficiencies and improving productivity has led them to consider new technologies, while technology experts are increasingly recognising the value of business and enterprise ap-plications. A new generation of lawyers are also eager to work with the latest technologies to satisfy the expectations of their clients. Matters such as mobile productivity, workflow management, speech recognition and self-sufficiency are important aspects of modern legal practice and for many, BigHand’s voice productivity platform meets these demands.

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Contents

- Executive summary

- The evolution of voice technologies

- What is BigHand’s voice productivity platform?

- Economic pressures

Supporting role

- The clamour for change

- The future

- Key Takeaways

The Voice of Reason: Digital Dictation in association with BigHand

What is BigHand’s voice productivity platform?

BigHand’s voice productivity platform is not just about efficient digital dictation. It can be used for sending instructions, delegating tasks and monitoring progress. It enables law-yers to focus more on billable work by optimising their time spent outside of the office. BigHand’s voice productivity platform speeds up the course of turning the spoken work into text and significantly quickens the document production process.

Advances in workflow digital dictation including BigHand’s voice productivity platform mean that lawyers can upload voice files (such as digital dictations) to a server-based workflow engine from their smartphone. These files also contain detailed information about their length, status and other important data such as deadlines.

The software enables fee-earners to send dictations one-at-a-time, to be transmitted in-stantly to secretarial staff who could be based in any location.

This means that work can start on a dictation as soon as the fee-earner has finished re-cording it; removing any need to dock a separate digital device and upload a series of dic-tations at the end of the day.

An administrator may also prioritise work and assign it to available support staff. Dicta-tions may be split into individual parts so that several staff members are able to work on the project concurrently. This is especially valuable in today’s legal environment where there is a much lower ratio of secretaries to lawyers. It means that there is a greater risk that secretaries become over-burdened. With BigHand’s voice productivity platform, dic-tations can be properly distributed and support staff can be effectively utilised.

Nathan Hayes, head of IT at UK-based international firm Osborne Clarke says: ‘We are us-ing the workflow tools built into BigHand’s system to allocate work very effectively across offices, and getting better use out of the PAs. We have achieved a much better ratio be-tween fee-earners and PAs, because we can use resources in remote locations [for the transcription], so spread the workload across a wider group of resources.’

Annamaria Samarco, IT support manager at international firm Bird & Bird comments: ‘If a secretary is off sick, you can re-assign the work seamlessly, without needing to figure out which tape it is on.’

In addition, with the advances in speech recognition software, fee-earners or support staff can also turn dictations into text even more efficiently. It means with less time spent on transcribing dictations, they can focus more on proof reading and finalising documents.

Economic pressures

The recent economic downturn has prompted virtually all corporates to analyse their own costs more closely. This means that in-house legal departments and those responsible for engaging external legal counsel are now demanding much greater value-for-money. An-ecdotal evidence indicates that clients are scrutinising their legal adviser’s billings more closely than ever and this has forced law firms to demonstrate that they have up-to-date systems and efficiencies in place.

Fixed fees and discounted hourly rates are now commonplace and as a result law firms have their own internal pressures to maintain or even boost profitability. This has led to a growing focus on cutting overheads and maximising efficiency and staff utilisation.

Even so, research conducted by The Lawyer * indicates that many firms still have some way to go towards operating at optimum efficiency; with a clear role for technology, includ-ing applications such as BigHand’s voice productivity platform.

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Contents

- Executive summary




Supporting role


- The future

- Key Takeaways


Supporting role

In an era in which law firms are intent on cutting unnecessary overheads, the focus on internal systems and technology has never been greater. Evidence indicates that firms are now assigning far fewer lawyers and support staff to individual client matters. Clients are much more aware of value-for-money and are less comfortable with excessive billable hours generated by large or bloated legal teams. Law firm efficiencies are widely assessed by the number of lawyers and support staff that are assigned to a matter.

Research by The Lawyer indicates that many European firms are still operating with rela-tively high numbers of support staff. Overall, 43% of firms questioned had a lawyer/sup-port staff ratio of 2:1, while a significant minority - 10% - had one member of support staff for every single lawyer.

Research also indicated that the jurisdictions where firms benefited from the most profit-able lawyer/support staff ratios were also those where firms displayed the most progres-sive attitude towards technology; for example, with greater use of BlackBerry, iPhones and business apps.

The clearest examples of this were found in Scandinavia and the Benelux region, where there was a high take-up of smartphones and business apps. In Scandinavia 45% of firms operated on a 3:1 lawyer/support staff ratio.

Law firms in Germany also showed a willingness to em-brace technology, with high take-up of the BlackBerry and iPhone, and 80% usage of business apps.

In countries with a strong dictation culture – includ-ing Germany, Belgium, Holland and Scandinavia – many firms have invested in IT solutions to speed up the dicta-tion process. While a significant proportion of firms still currently rely on tape-based systems, 45% have now in-vested in a dictation system that no longer uses tapes.

However, many international law firms present in those jurisdictions - and some leading national practices, including leading German firm Hengeler Mueller – have now taken a further step forward by adopting a new generation of workflow digital dictation systems such as BigHand’s voice productivity platform.

The clamour for change

International law firm Osborne Clarke uses BigHand’s voice productivity platform in the UK and Germany.

Nathan Hayes, head of IT at the firm, explains: ‘In the UK, we used BigHand to enhance the level of efficiency associated with dictation, and – primarily – transcription, in terms of process and quality.

‘It has allowed us to re-engineer the way in which we support our lawyers. ‘We are using the workflow tools built into BigHand’s system to allocate work very effec-tively across offices, and getting better use out of our transcription resources. We have achieved a much better ratio between fee-earners and PAs, because we can use resources in remote locations [for the transcription], so spread the workload across a wider group”

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In Scandinavia 45% of firms operated on a 3:1 lawyer/support staff ratio

Contents

- Executive summary




Supporting role


- The future

- Key Takeaways


Hayes adds that BigHand’s voice productivity platform has also allowed the firm to make better use of specialist transcription skills, for example by ensuring that all employment law-related transcriptions – across multiple offices - can be sent to a team of transcribers who focus on that area.

‘You can target resources much better, and gain access to skills other than those available in any single office,’ he says.

Though the German economy has shown greater resilience than much of the rest of Eu-rope, this has not negated the need for firms to generate greater efficiencies and value-for-money. Christiane Mueller-Haye, at German legal IT specialist ROW Consulting, says that while German law firms have not felt the tight squeeze on fees seen elsewhere in Eu-rope, finance directors are now beginning to put pressure on in-house counsel to reduce their legal spend.

‘Clients are also expecting higher service levels,’ she says. ‘BigHand’s voice productiv-ity platform enables them to get work done in a much shorter timeframe than they do now.’

In addition, Mueller-Haye says that with a younger gen-eration of lawyers coming through, there is a growing acknowledgement that change is unavoidable and that technology and new ways of working are going to form an increasingly vital role in day-to-day legal practice.

‘Now there is a new generation of partners who are very much like entrepreneurs, whereas before they only had to focus on their legal work. I believe it will get much more common to have a huge night desk which every-one uses [for transcription].’

Mueller-Haye believes BigHand’s voice productivity platform has the potential to transform the way that German lawyers work: ‘With the mobile technology, where a lawyer is conducting due diligence outside the office, instead of having to wait to get the tape back, they can now send it straight away, and it can be split between secretaries, to be transcribed even quicker.’

She adds that these benefits are not just for large firms.

‘There are a lot of smaller firms in the German market, and they do not have as many sup-port staff and secretaries. Speech recognition means they can transcribe themselves, and simply proof read on screen.’

Osborne Clarke has two offices in Germany, with 180 staff in Cologne, and 25 in Munich. It uses BigHand’s voice productivity platform in both.

‘The system has worked well for us in Germany,’ says Hayes. ‘For example, Munich does not have a large local population of transcription resources, and this technology allows us to address that limitation.’ But he adds that the motivation for introducing the technology differed in Germany, compared to the offices in the UK.

‘In Germany, the firm has [introduced the technology] but has not changed its personal assistant ratios. It was about enhancing the service to clients.’

He explains: ‘Culturally, our German business operates a model where a higher degree of support work is undertaken by PA’s, and the firm is willing to invest in that approach.’

International firm Bird & Bird, which has offices throughout Europe, uses BigHand’s voice productivity platform in the UK and in its four German offices.

‘You can target resources much better, and gain access to skills other than those available in any single office’

Contents

- Executive summary




Supporting role


- The future

- Key Takeaways

5The Voice of Reason: Digital Dictation in association with BigHand

IT support manager Annamaria Samarco says the technology has proven particularly use-ful when lawyers are working from a different office.

‘One of the advantages of being an international firm, is that you can import the best tech-nology from different offices. We began using BigHand mobility in Germany after a German partner had been on secondment to the UK firm, and saw how he could do his dictation via BigHand on his BlackBerry.

‘Now, a German lawyer might be working in the UK office, but they can still send the dicta-tion to be transcribed in the German office if they need to.’

Firms in the Benelux region are also seeing the same challenges to their bottom line as most of the rest of Europe, with clients reluctant to pay more than they have to for legal services.

Juul Leijnse, managing director of IT company dFlow, BigHand’s partner in the Benelux re-gion, says: ‘With pressure on costs, firms in Belgium and the Netherlands have been trying to get rid of as many fee burners – as opposed to fee-earners – as they can.

‘But in my view, they have been trying to reduce costs in the wrong way. They are getting rid of more secretaries, and expecting fee-earners to work more hours and do more them-selves; but that is not really reducing costs for the firm or the client. BigHand’s voice pro-ductivity platform is a much better option, and in my view, lawyers will produce much bet-ter work if they use speech, rather than typing themselves.’

The future

As the next generation of workflow digital dictation software, BigHand’s voice productiv-ity platform can offer firms a clear competitive edge. The ability to record voice files on a smartphone while away from the office, and send the dictation immediately for transcrip-tion, provides a turnaround speed that is significantly quicker than traditional dictation systems. Lawyers needn’t carry around yet another expensive and burdensome device, while the capacity to split voice files between secretaries means that work can be dis-tributed between secretaries in the most productive way, ensuring all support staff are being properly deployed. In addition, the use of speech recognition software means that the emphasis can be switched from transcription to proof reading. It enables documents to be produced even faster and at a cost that is appealing to the firm as well as the client.

BigHand has already worked with 1500 firms globally, including 70% of the UK’s top-100 firms. As new technologies gain traction in mainland Europe and the rest of the world, BigHand’s voice productivity platform is gaining a genuine foothold in other pivotal legal markets.

Contents

- Executive summary




Supporting role


- The future

- Key Takeaways


Key Takeaways for BigHand’s voice productivity platform in northern Europe

- BigHand’s voice productivity platform works to improve turnaround times for documents and improve speed of service

- Time away from the office can be easily converted to billable hours through BigHand’s smartphone apps

- Efficient distribution of work amongst support staff is made dramatically easier

- Speech recognition technology can convert speech to text, allowing more time to be spent on document production and less time on transcribing dictations - Work can be constantly monitored and assigned varying levels of urgency

- The use of BigHand’s voice productivity platform on smartphones negates the necessity for expensive digital dictation devices

[* The Lawyer questioned 89 IT directors and managers in Europe about their firm’s use of technology, in April 2012]


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