Attorneys and other personnel in law offices are discovering the efficiencies of speech recognition software.

1. Speech Recognition Technology for Lawyers
Attorneys and other personnel in law offices are discovering the efficiencies
of speech recognition software.
Accurate documentation is an essential function in a legal firm. Law firms, attorneys,
and corporate legal departments have to document detailed briefs, contracts and
legal documents in short turnaround time. The conventional mode, where the
lawyers dictate into tape-based transcription systems and staff listen to these audio
recordings and manually type what they hear into a word processing program on
their computers is proving time consuming and inefficient. Now, speech recognition
software has revolutionized digital dictation and has become the most accepted
means of legal document creation.
Voice recognition programs analyze an incoming stream of sound and decipher the
sounds as commands and dictation. With this innovative technology, legal
professionals can either dictate and create documents themselves at the ‘front-end’,
or create the documents and have a legal transcription company make corrections to
the transcribed document at the ‘back-end’.
By combining speech recognition technology and legal process outsourcing, lawyers
can:
•
•
Speed up documentation turnaround
•
Reduce transcription costs
Get quality transcripts of all confidential legal records
•
Streamline workflow
The latest Vrecognition technologies in the market include Dragon Naturally Speaking
from Nuance Communications and Apple’s new OS X Maverick.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 Legal
Designed, for the legal community, Dragon
NaturallySpeaking 12 Legal is speech
recognition software that helps legal
professionals achieve exceptional efficiency
and improved productivity. With this tool
from Nuance, lawyers can directly dictate
their documents, emails and templates for
immediate
transcription.
High
level
accuracy is the major advantage of this
dictation tool. It gets your words on the
screen the way you intended. Dragon 12
automatically learns your preferences when
you make a change to how words, phrases
or numbers are formatted. Dragon Dictate
is the perfect choice to dictate long briefs
and legal details. Other advantages:

2. •
•
•
•
•
Automatically formats legal citations
Facilitates email management, navigation of web pages
Provides security features and administrative tools for managing large user
networks
Supports multiple audio input devices – including Bluetooth
Audio playback for easier proofreading and correction
With this tool, you can use iOS or Android device as a wireless microphone. This
software works with other text-based applications on your computer just like
Microsoft Office Suite, Lexis Nexis and other legal based software.
OS X Maverick’s Built-in-tool
This new version dictation tool from Apple does not require an active Internet
connection. This tool works anywhere on the Mac so that you can enter text, and no
training or customization necessary.
OS X Mavericks offers the option of downloading a file that supports offline dictation.
To set it up, go to the Dictation & Speech pane in System Preferences and tick the
Use Enhanced Dictation box. This begins file download.
There are certain drawbacks as well. Dictation errors are more frequent with the
Mavericks tool. The words appear on the screen in a disjointed way. For instance, the
word “detail” is transcribed as “D tell.”
While choosing voice recognition systems for transcription make sure you are aware
of these disadvantages as well. Reliable legal transcription companies provide
services from expert legal transcriptionists who can edit the digitally recorded files
into accurate transcripts.