Digital dictation has been one of the few legal technology success stories of recent years, primarily because its use involves virtually no retraining in the way fee-earners dictate and secretaries transcribe - but just what sort of benefits does it really deliver?

This is often problematic because all too often law firms justify their IT investments in terms of 'soft' benefits, such as 'it will enable us to provide a better service to clients', without quantifying the details. However, one firm that has recently gone public on the benefits of digital dictation is 26-partner London commercial practice Campbell Hooper. Back in early 2002, the firm was one of the first in the UK to implement a full digital dictation workflow management system, that not only handled dictation but also the movement and management of the electronic files containing the dictation across its computer network between fee-earner and secretary.


Now, after three years of using digital dictation (the firm selected what went on to become the TotalSpeech system from BigHand) it estimates that it has saved more than £400,000 on temporary secretarial cover alone.


In addition, while there may have been no savings in terms of the firm's full-time secretarial staff being made redundant, Campbell Hooper has been able to increase its number of fee-earners from 40 to 48 during this same period without having to make a corresponding increase in its secretarial headcount.


So, expenditure on temps down, fee- earner-to-secretary staff ratios improved and, according to the firm's IT director Chris Simmons, there has also been a considerable improvement in document turnaround times, as well as an end to all the little aggravations that always used to surround analogue dictation systems, such as lost or faulty tapes.


But what about smaller firms which cannot afford, nor need, full-blown workflow management systems? Even here there are potential savings and benefits to be obtained by moving from analogue to digital systems, particularly as most of the stand-alone digital dictation recorders now available (from suppliers such as Olympus, Philips, Grundig and Sanyo) also include some form of PC integration software that allows files to be moved across a network or even sent as a file attachment with an e-mail message.


For example, instead of having to physically deliver tapes for transcription, sole practitioners, who frequently use outside typing agencies, can now transfer dictation files via e-mail and so also benefit from improved document turnaround times.


Charles Christian is an independent adviser to the Law Society's Software Solutions guide