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It is common in my profession to ask a lot of questions. Indeed, it is necessary. A virtual assistant is someone who needs to know as much as possible about a particular client’s system or way of doing things in order to use available technology to help them do better, faster, for less cost and Can be used – whatever the customer is looking for benefits.
I started my VA career about eight years ago and have limited my practice to virtual assistance in the legal industry. Over the years, I have asked many attorneys, law firm administrators, paralegals, human resources managers, private investigators, IT administrators, managing partners, office managers, secretaries, and others about the processes they use in their firms. Some use document management software, some don’t. Some have websites, some don’t. Almost without fail, when asked what lawyers use for dictation, the most common response: a tape recorder.
This is good, because dictating is a very efficient process, even with a tape. According to Dictaphone, recorded dictation was established in 1952 as “a time saver over handwriting and shorthand among lawyers, physicians and other professionals”. The first mini cassette recorder hit the market in 1973. Do you believe in this? The same little recorder used by most firms in America today is the technical equivalent of listening to music on 8 tracks!
In any event, if your firm uses tape-based dictation, it is already understood that recording the firm’s actual work product is a good way to get the job done and if your firm uses dictation If not, then maybe you should start with digital so keep reading.
Why upgrade to Digital Dictation?
Although not as old as dictation, digital dictation has been around for a long time. The medical profession has been using digital dictation technology (call in and portable recorders) for over a decade. Why? Upgrading to a digital dictation process allowed hospitals, clinics, doctor’s offices and insurance companies to:
Ability for doctors to work remotely with nothing more than a phone or portable recorder and internet connection
Centralization of document workflow for multiple user, multiple site operations
o Ability to monitor work in progress and overall productivity
o Ability to track and report on various metrics and criteria
o Ability to use remote transcriptionists and save on personnel costs
The way I see it, a firm of any size stands to gain just as much by upgrading to a digital dictation process as a comparably sized medical practice – so the question remains, with so much to gain, did they Why not!? (Read that list again — with your firm in mind.)
Why Aren’t Companies Using Digital Dictation?
I believe the main reason is that no one has put together 2%2B2 yet. Since digital dictation technology is not “new”, it has not received much attention outside of the medical industry. More recently, however, British and other European law firms have been talking about how the upgrade to digital dictation has been easier and better than expected.
What is it here in America?
Listed below (in reverse order) are the top three responses I’ve received over the years to the question: “Why hasn’t your firm upgraded to digital dictation?”
Number 3: “Digital dictation, isn’t that speech recognition?”
No, speech recognition is not digital dictation. Speech recognition software. It takes human voice and converts it into text. Speech recognition software requires training for each specific user – hours of training for most applications, making the implementation of this technology not practical in most firm settings.
Digital dictation is the recording of your voice with software or equipment that provides dictation functions – stop, rewind, insert, and so forth. With digital, however, the recording doesn’t go to tape, it’s saved as an audio file (ie, .wav, .dss). Unlike speech recognition, digital dictation requires a transcriptionist and software to transcribe the recorded thoughts.
By the way, I firmly believe that speech recognition software can never replace a good legal secretary/transcriptionist – no matter how much you train it, it can never catch when you say “respondent” and give you Should have said “plaintiff”! ,
So, while you may have heard or read about the disadvantages of speech recognition technology, digital dictation is a different animal altogether.
Number 2: “If it ain’t broke…”
Yes, it’s true that tape dictation works and has worked for decades, but so does a typewriter, an abacus, even a compass for that matter. Upgrading to digital dictation isn’t just an improvement over a known process. It’s a natural evolution of dictation – from human (secretary) to recorded (tape), to digital (sound file).
When upgrading to digital, it should be highlighted that transcribers no longer need to be in the same physical location as the person transcribing – or in today’s parlance: can work remotely ! Depending on how the capture process is set up, as long as the firm’s dictators have access to the telephone or the Internet, they can produce billable time.
Because a dictation file created with Digital is electronic in nature, it can be manipulated in the same way as any other computer file – stored, routed through networks, and so on. This makes the dictation file more convenient and user-friendly in today’s electronic environment (networks, multiple offices, document management software, retention requirements).
For firm dictators with remote work opportunities, upgrading to digital dictation provides reporting and tracking on each file as it travels through the process or all metrics that a tape based dictation system simply cannot provide. Get hold of a tape and ask a lawyer what’s on it and see what he says! If it was a digital file, however, you always know what date and time the file was created, by whom, how long it is, what client it’s for, what it deals with, and much more.
So, from an administrator’s as well as dictator’s point of view, upgrading to digital dictation vastly improves how things get done.
And… my favorite response of all time…
“Why hasn’t your firm upgraded to digital dictation?”
Number 1: “We don’t like change.”
I am not joking! I’ve heard this exact phrase more times than I care to admit!
Plus, of course, this response helped me to realize that it can take forever for firms to make a decision, which presents quite the puzzle. Why? When upgrading to digital, the process doesn’t really change much for the dictator. In fact, Olympus and other major manufacturers even have portable digital recorders in their professional line that have a slide switch. In truth, a digital recorder that mimics the functions of an analog recorder.
So, when properly configured, in addition to the fact that a lawyer doesn’t have to get up from his chair (or leave his chair) to hand the tapes to his secretary, when upgrading to digital, Dictator some Also “don’t”.
wrapping it all up
At some point, every firm has to weigh the pros and cons of any technology upgrade. With more and more equipment and software needed to stay competitive, it’s no wonder no one is looking for another “upgrade”. Unlike so much technology available today, however, digital dictation technology is not “new”. It is very stable and has been tested, successfully implemented and used in environments of various sizes for over a decade.
This should, IMHO, be the upgrade for any firm’s 2009 technology budget to digital dictation.
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