Leading Warwickshire law firm enhances 200-user workflow process with an 'enterprise' installation by SpeechWrite

Renowned in the Midlands for its full service legal offering, Wright Hassall is the largest and oldest established law firm in Warwickshire, incorporating 230 staff at its Leamington Spa offices. Established in 1846, the firm acts for a diverse range of regional and national clients and constantly strives to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of everything it does - with teamwork central to its success.

Wright Hassall is top-ranked in legal directories in 39 areas and its sector specialisms include lender services, technology, logistics, social housing and retail. The firm hosts a large team of 80 fee-earners and 80 secretaries, who are invariably office and field-based and produce hundreds of reports and client documents a week.

Adapting to new technology and ever-demanding client requirements, the firm sought a new document management system to tackle increasing quantities of electronic work files and increasing remote working practices.

Changing working practices

Traditionally, private client teams within law firms have been focused on the job at hand, potentially creating a disjointed approach between the teams when they are asked to prepare a will, buy a property or deal with a family problem.

As a result of its ‘lawyers for life’ approach, which looks to break down the traditional departmental structures and transaction focus, Wright Hassall reviewed the way it worked as a team. After initially adopting a digital dictation solution in 2010 following a technical and commercial review of its traditional tape-based system, the IT department found that the firm had new, more sophisticated system requirements that needed enhanced technology.

Martyn Wells, IT director for Wright Hassall explains:

“Remote working was becoming commonplace for fee-earners; they needed a systematic method of releasing reports for transcription whilst being offsite and having no access to a PC or an internet connection. It was just not practical for our lawyers to wait until they returned to the office to download the sound file - this would have caused an unnecessary surge of transcription work to the secretarial team and unacceptable delays to our clients.

In addition, we knew that speech recognition working was becoming more popular and reliable in our sector, so Wright Hassall had to consider this migration in our next solution upgrade.”

In its search for a solution, Wright Hassall contacted its existing digital dictation supplier, Birmingham-based Philips partner SpeechWrite Digital, in a bid to upgrade its existing Philips Pro solution to a more administrator-enhanced program. With reporting functions and IT back-end control a necessity for the firm, Martyn’s requirements were specific:

“The new solution had to work around the firm, not the other way around. We didn’t need an out of the box generic software program. We needed a workflow management system that worked around the dynamic of Wright Hassall– we couldn’t compromise on this”.

After a consultation and system review, SpeechWrite Digital, specialists in the installation, configuration and support of digital dictation systems, arranged a pilot with Philips’ most technologically advanced and sophisticated offering: SpeechExec Enterprise.

A pinnacle in workflow management

SpeechExec Enterprise is a complete workflow management system incorporating the individual configuration requirements of users and system demands of IT administrators. Allowing central management, this dictation workflow solution connects authors and typists to smooth the document production process with its ‘templates’ feature, as well as incorporating optimum security features and backup for protecting sensitive data - fully supported via Citrix and Terminal Services for on-demand application delivery.

In a drive for future-proofing, SpeechWrite, an award-winning partner of Philips, geared the system for Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition to increase the firm’s future technology options.

The results – remote working and 20-minutes to 10-seconds profile creation

Martyn Wells needed a centrally-managed system for the firm’s 200 remote and office-based users, and SpeechExec Enterprise allowed total control of individuals processing and interface configuration, whilst allowing reporting functions to assess what type of work was being handled, when and by whom.

The advantages of this totally integrated workflow system included that it benefited both users and systems administrators alike.

Wright Hassall’s fee earners had the ability to introduce Blackberry dictation as a realistic method of working; clients wanting a 24/7 service means that smartphone dictation was becoming a requirement rather than a luxury. This dictation method meant that a fee earner needing to process dictations whilst on the move with no access to a PC could do so using in-car Bluetooth. This allows a drip-feed of transcription tasks to secretaries, rather than a bulk download of dictated files in their inbox when the lawyer returns to the office.

The firm’s IT department had acquired a consistent and accurate overview of its workflow system; this is vital when maintaining a workflow management system for 80 fee earners and 80 secretaries. The IT team of just nine staff had total backend control over a 200-user site and an I.T administrator was able to set up or transfer a user in 10-seconds, as opposed to the 20 minutes needed with the previous workflow software.

Martyn comments:

“Our working requirements are ever-changing – our I.T department needed to optimise backend control and minimise individual configuration tasks. SpeechWrite Digital gave us a fully-managed workflow system with the Enterprise package; this allowed our I.T administrators to streamline processes and quicken document turnaround - ultimately resulting in Wright Hassall working in a more profitable way that was more satisfactory to our clients.”

w: www.speechwrite.com

Twitter: @SpeechWrite_com

 

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SpeechWrite Digital: Award-winning digital dictation and speech recognition for your ?law firm

A leading midlands dictation provider and accredited Master Digital Centre for Philips, SpeechWrite Digital has earned a reputation for excellence in consultation, service, support and product development and is now recognised as a major player in the digital dictation market.

Traditionally supplying and installing dictation and speech recognition solutions in legal environments, the Birmingham-based company recognised workflow gaps and administrative improvements within solicitors’ offices and seized the business opportunity to offer the same level of technical services to SME firms that had previously only been provided to larger and top-100 law firms.

Unique to competing solution providers, SpeechWrite provides a one-on-one approach with its customers; a project manager is assigned to each client to identify commercial, systems and training requirements within individual law firms. This type of approach has led to its adoption by larger law firms in the UK (such as Freshfields and Wright Hassall). It provides measurable commercial advantages such as quickened document turnaround time, optimised file security, enhanced remote working and increased response speed for clients.

The SpeechWrite Digital business and reputation continue to grow - mainly by client referrals, but also by being sector-renowned for constant technology vigilance within the legal market. We are supported by a host of sales partners, with leading dictation manufacturer Philips being at the forefront of our products and solutions portfolio. Having won countless sales, marketing and technical awards, SpeechWrite and Philips continue to boast a sound and dynamic relationship to ensure that their customers benefits from their joint expertise and technical know-how.

Why choose SpeechWrite Digital?

• A highly experienced team with over 50 cumulative years in digital dictation and speech recognition installations, all of which undergo systemic OEM and partner training on new products, IT developments and solutions.

• A portfolio of hundreds of law firm clients, from high street practices to large law firms, all with positive referrals.

• Technical expertise to implement system overhauls and to provide organisational configuration.

• Unrivalled technical support packages to assure your firm of total post-sales commitment.

• Understanding of the challenges faced by law firms in competitive markets, including the importance of speed to clients and systems reliability in administrative processes.  

Contact us for a no-obligation consultation – we would be happy to help.

Tel. 0121 236 2626 | www.speechwrite.com?@Speechwrite_com | info@speechwrite.com

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