DIGITAL DICTATION: positive results as solicitors use central system and then allocate work

Law firms can make huge savings by reorganising their secretarial structures, promoting team leaders and using digital dictation, it was claimed last week.

Herbert Smith has saved 'a number of millions' by completely reworking its secretarial structure, head of secretarial services Sandie Craciun told delegates at a seminar on the evolving role of the legal secretary.

The City firm has severed the link between secretaries and individual fee-earners, instead using teams of around 20 secretaries for different departments within the firm.

One team leader was promoted from within each team to deal with day-to-day management issues, under the overall supervision of the human resources department.

A similar system could be used in firms of any size, she said.

Team leaders monitor the allocation of work so that one secretary is not overloaded while another is short of work, and arrange sickness cover from within the team.

'Fee-earners now spend almost no time on secretarial management and we have made considerable savings on temporary and "floating" cover,' said Ms Craciun.

Delegates at the seminar, organised by recruitment consultancy Career Legal, heard that similar savings have been achieved at City firm Nabarro Nathanson, which has also adopted the team-leader approach.

The firm's skills development consultant, Marion Coles, said: 'The team leader structure provides greater career opportunities for secretaries, which aids staff retention.

We send new team leaders on a two-day "introduction to management" programme and they then take part in some management workshops over a period of 16 weeks.'

Law firms are increasing the number of fee-earners per secretary, with most firms citing a ratio of 4:1 and Allen & Overy reaching a ratio of 6:1.

Digital dictation - whereby fee-earners dictate into a central system and the typing is then allocated to an available secretary - received positive feedback from the firms which had piloted it.

Those include London-based practices Russell Jones & Walker, Lewis Silkin and Farrer & Co.

Emma Hill, a human resources manager at East Anglia firm Mills & Reeve, said: 'Our digital dictation pilot has been very successful so far.

Our office in Norwich has always been very difficult to recruit good secretaries into.

Now we can focus much of that office's work into other offices such as Cambridge.'

One delegate from Nabarro Nathanson warned: 'We introduced digital dictation 12 months ago, and use it in all our offices.

But it is important to calm secretaries' concerns by making it clear that it is not voice recognition technology.'

Rachel Rothwell