Legal Cloud Dictation Using Existing Computer Systems

Legal Cloud Dictation Using Existing Systems

Legal Cloud Dictation System

Do you need to spend a small fortune replacing your current legal dictation software system to get the benefits of the Cloud?

Why using the cloud benefits existing legal dictation software systems:

Most solicitors currently use a legal digital dictation software system and will have done so for several years. As the move to the cloud gains momentum, we have seen a significant shift from all of the leading legal digital dictation providers towards a cloud offering, which is understandable as there are many benefits to be gained from being able to dictate from anywhere and instantly have those files ready for transcribing. It gives your fee earners the flexibility of a modern way of working. If you have multiple sites, it can allow you to be super-efficient with your current team and so potentially negate the need for additional staff costs. It also speeds up your response time for the customer which is an incredibly valuable point of difference in what is becoming a very tough marketplace.

Our customer’s predicament:

One of our legal customers had realised the value of implementing a cloud-based legal digital dictation system and having supported them for many successful years; they asked if we could come up with the best plan for executing the change. Our customer has five offices throughout Bristol with approximately 50 members of staff. They were already using Philips SpeechExec Legal Digital Dictation system but in isolation at each of their respective office team. If they had too much typing in one office, a floating secretary would need to drive between the offices to sit at a spare desk to do the extra typing. If a fee earner took a laptop home to complete some extra dictation work, they would have to pop back into the office to synchronise it with the onsite server in that branch. Which was particularly irritating and disruptive for fee earners trying to tie up loose ends before going away on holiday.

There are off the shelf systems for cloud-based digital dictation solution, but in speaking with their current provider (Speech Exec), they would need to upgrade each of their current dictation licenses with a newer version. Which meant approximately £5000+ to update their legal software solutions to support with this cloud-based legal system. Even then, they would need to have ongoing digital subscriptions for each user that would increase their ongoing costs significantly too.

For most, this would be accepted as ‘just how things are’ but for us, we like to think about the problems and be a bit smarter in our approach the solution, especially when it can benefit the customer’s team!

The current situation:

A working system was already in place that, for everything other than legal cloud dictations, had proved itself to be reliable
The only requirement was the ability to dictate remotely and between the individual branches
Staff were having to drive between the offices to help with extra-legal workload
To buy an ‘off the shelf’ legal dictation solution would cost more than £5000

The Solution – A Hybrid Legal Dictation System

We successfully designed and tested a hybrid legal dictation system that would give them all the benefits of the cloud-based solutions but with less change and less cost. The solution was simple. Their current solution was already saving their dictations to a central location at each of the sites, so we just needed to connect them. There are many different types of cloud storage options, each with their benefits. Through our vast experience with these cloud storage options, we were able to choose the one that would work best for their needs and which would reliably and securely synchronise the dictations between the sites. The beauty of this approach was that all the changes were completed behind the scenes, no changes made to the end user’s setups including the dictation software solution they use. So, not only would they be able to carry on using the same software and therefore save cost and time, but they wouldn’t need any costly training, and the work was completed without causing any disruption.

The Results:

The whole project cost £650 as opposed to the original £5000+ anticipated
The ongoing costs are less than half of the previously proposed solution
They can now dictate from anywhere with an internet connection.
All sites can see all dictations and can now be seen by the secretaries, no matter which office they are in so no more wasting time asking staff to travel to another location to help.
The system can be used for additional benefits, synchronising other data as well.
Their working practices haven’t changed, meaning no additional training was required.
We were able to remove the anxiety caused by some staff at the thought of changing the system they already knew and loved.
There were no disruptions throughout all the changes
Our customer retained complete control. This system will work for any digital dictation provider, so if they ever had to change systems, they could do so quickly and without any risk or cost.
This system is entirely GDPR compliant.

Would your company benefit from this proactive and savvy IT support from a company that puts your needs first? Just get in touch to see how we might be able to help you achieve similar gains with your ongoing IT requirements, please give our experts in our Bristol Office a call on 0117 9118808 or enquire for help here.