Legal firm improves office efficiency and productivity with WinScribe Digital Dictation

Reddy Charlton McKnight is an independent firm of solicitors based in Dublin, specialising in a range of sectors including property, business and litigation. Established in 1908 by Charles J Reddy, it’s well linked internationally with connections in over 28 countries.

With over 98 years operating in Dublin, Reddy Charlton McKnight has developed considerable reputation for serving enterprising clients on both professional and personal matters.

Wanting to move with the times, the firm recently updated its dictation system to improve operational efficiency and to provide a better level of service to its clients. After carrying out some extensive research, secretary and IT Officer Mary Nolan selected WinScribe Digital Dictation.

“We needed a reliable dictation solution that would enable us to manage documents more efficiently. We chose WinScribe as we believed it to have a better reputation than some of the others out there and we have not been disappointed,” explains Mary Nolan.

Previously using analogue tapes meant that if solicitors were to dictate out of the office, they would have to then send them through the post for their secretary to pick them up the next day. This delay meant that secretaries would have to work even faster to keep up with heavy workload. There were also problems in other areas.

Nolan says, “Using analogue tapes had a number of disadvantages. The tapes were not indexed so you couldn’t see how many jobs were on them or how long each dictation was. This made it more difficult to manage time efficiently, as you couldn’t tell how many dictations you were able to fit into your day for maximum productivity. There was also the issue of sound quality, which was obviously worse with tapes, meaning accuracy suffered when transcribing.”

The WinScribe system displays the number of jobs waiting to be completed in the queue, the length of dictation, which jobs should have priority and also the deadline for their completion. It allows secretaries to speed up or slow down the dictation for greater word recognition. It also cuts out the costs, delay and unreliability of sending audio tapes through the post.

“With WinScribe you can actually distribute the jobs out between all the secretaries so that if someone goes off sick another secretary can take on the job,” continued Mary.

Reddy Charlton McKnight has a team of twenty fee earners and fifteen secretaries all working from one site, with the possibility in the future for staff to work from home.

Docman, a partner selling the Winscribe solution over the last five years into the legal and medical professions, successfully installed the software last May. Docman was established in 2000 and is an independent supplier of Enterprise Digital Dictation and Transcription Solutions based in Ireland.

Speaking about the installation process, Mary Nolan says, “I have never seen a software fit in and work so well in such a short amount of time. WinScribe was installed in one day; it was seamless. Everyone at the firm has found the system so user friendly and this is for all levels of experience; authors and secretaries.”

For those solicitors who spend most of their time away from the office in meetings and in court, the WinScribe system has become an invaluable tool. Solicitors are able to dictate remotely using their hand held recorder and transfer the data to the WinScribe server via an individual docking station connected to their home PC or laptop.

Secretaries can log on from home or the office into the WinScribe system where they can download documents awaiting transcription. They can then copy these documents into the relevant client files and send them to the printer ready for the solicitor to pick up.

“WinScribe has sped up the dictation process immensely and improved the way both secretaries and solicitors at the firm work. The system we used before meant that a secretary would receive an audiotape with numerous dictation jobs on it that would have to be completed by that individual. This could sometimes be an overwhelming amount of work for one person to have to do. With WinScribe the workload is spread across our team of secretaries therefore improving office efficiency,” concluded Mary.

DOWNLOAD PDF