With such a wide range of expertise within one firm, it is essential for HLW to have a reliable and accessible means of communicating data between lawyers and secretaries. Transcription work needs to be managed logistically between the two offices so that urgent dictations can be prioritised successfully and transcription workloads shared effectively. 

In consultation with Audio Business Machines in Sheffield, Philips Digital Dictation technology was chosen. Among the deciding factors were the highly reputable brand name, simplicity of product function and value for money. HLW purchased sixty digital Pocket Memo 9400 devices for mobile dictation and 42 SpeechExec Pro Transcription Set 7277 systems.

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Practice Manager Melissa Butler is responsible for the supervision and management of the solicitors' office. Part of her role is to keep an eye on the secretarial team's workflow. As any practice manager worth his or her salt knows, the workflow for secretarial teams can ebb and flow - especially when large amounts of transcription are involved.

"When key staff were taken ill, the number of tapes earmarked for urgent transcription quickly began to build up," she says. "At other times of the month there wasn't quite enough work to go round and workload needed to be re-distributed."

Steel & Shamash decided to move all authors and secretaries from analogue to digital in one go. 21 Digital Pocket Memos (9360 series) complete with docking cradles were dispatched to the authors, while each secretary was equipped with PC-based Philips SpeechExec Pro Transcription Set 7277 software.

Melissa was particularly interested in the workflow and workload management benefits offered by the SpeechExec Pro software, especially the ability to prioritize documents for transcription in order of preference and the prospect of secretaries being able to visualize dictation data, such as length, author name and key words. The SpeechExec Pro Transcription Set 7277 software also offered better value for money, when compared with rival offerings.

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In July 2005, the company abandoned its historic dependance on analogue, cassette-based recording devices after a meeting with Philips Master Digital Centre, GB Copiers Limited. Following a consultation, out went the tape recorders and in came 6 Digital Pocket Memos from Philips Dictation Systems, accompanied by 4 Philips transcription kits. In the space of 1 working day, Lawrence & Wightman went from analogue to digital, boosting long-term productivity rates for authors and secretataries alike.

"There is no way that Lawrence & Wightman would go back to analogue now that we have seen how much better the digital solution is."

Wendy Williams, Office Manager, Lawrence & Wightman

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The company found its analogue dictation equipment was requiring unexpectedly high levels of maintenance. The ongoing running costs associated with replacing gnarled and worn-out tapes was mounting.

For the office manager, Mike Wilson, however, it was the prospect of remote working for the company's team of surveyors that proved most attractive benefit of investing in a digital dictation solution.

"Given the size of our company, we moved everyone over to digital dictation in one go, rather than undertake a more gradual transition," says Mike, who hasn't since regretted the decision once.

The authors were also impressed by the Digital Pocket Memo support for the DSS file format. This industry standard file format meant they could keep the file sizes of their recordings to a minimum, while maintaining excellent sound quality.

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As 2003 drew to a close, the transition from a fragmented analogue dictation platform to an integrated digital one wasn't a question of if. For practice manager Naeem Dean, it was a question of when.

Naeem had read favourable reports of digital recording products from Philips Dictation Systems in the trade press. Pondering the company's future dictation options, his first port of call was the company's long-term trusted supplier of recording equipment, England Crowhurst Limited.

Naeem arranged for England Crowhurst Limited to come in and demonstrate the latest in Philips digital dictation recording devices to one of the Croftons partners. A trial period followed in which an author worked in tandem with one of the secretarial staff. Together they experimented with Philips SpeechMike equipment, which allowed the author to record directly to his PC. They also put a Philips Digital Pocket Memo device through its paces for dictation on the move, using it in conjunction with SpeechExec Pro software.

Both the author and his secretary were impressed, and soon after, England Crowhurst had supplied Croftons with 16 Philips SpeechMikes, Digital Pocket Memos and SpeechExec Pro software packages. One by one, department by department, Croftons began migrating its dictation platform from analogue to digital.

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In 2005 Harris Paley revolutionised their processes by adopting a digital dictation and transcription technology platform from Philips Dictation Systems. Newmans Business Solutions, a Philips implementation partner, helped Harris Paley implement the technology and align it with the firms specific working practises.

"In addition to its exceptional flexibility and ease of use, the Philips software have proved absolutely reliable for us."

Mr Harris, Senior Partner at Harris Paley

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Already impressed with the flexibility, fast turnaround, recording quality and other benefits of Philips SpeechMike Exec software combined with Philips Digital Pocket Memo handheld voice recorders, Allsop & Co recently sought to take advantage of the latest advanced in digital dictation and transcription systems.

"Given our success with Philips technology over the past six years, we knew that upgrading to SpeechExec Pro and expanding our system throughout the firm would give us even more of an edge over our competition."

John Carter, Senior Surveyor at Allsops & Co

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Enoch Evans employs more than 100 people and relies heavily on its analogue dictation system to minimize time spent in composing letters and documents. The analogue system was however, cumbersome. Today, all Enoch Evans' departments are using Philips digital dictation and transcription. "The Philips system is much more flexible than our old analogue tape recorders. The hardware is a good, comfortable shape because the files are digital, authors can easily locate and reprioritise files in the transcription queue"

David Evans, Enoch Evans

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Kenneth Elliott & Rowe was established in the 1930s as a general practice. Later they have expanded to meet the needs of this growing community and today it has over 10 partners and solicitors supported by 15 other lawyers and 30 plus support staff providing services in commercial, employment, family, insolvency, personal injury, property, will and probate.

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Digby Brown was one of the first firms to install Philips SpeechMikeT Executive Digital Dictation solution back in May 1999. With 11 partners and 54 employees serving over 4000 clients and believes that technology has an increasing role to play in providing excellent representation.

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