Well-known law firm Howrey LLP is changing their G2 (News - Alert) and DictaNet dictation workflow systems from London and Munich, to the BigHand3 digital dictation workflow system. With Big Hand’s software, Howrey will be able to centralize its dictation infrastructure, and install it in their European and US offices, as and when required.
This Microsoft Gold Partner & BlackBerry (News - Alert) ISV Partner has its offices in Chicago, London, Sydney and Toronto. The company has many ‘Legal Technology Awards,’ which include the ‘Best of Breed System of the Year’ to its credit.
BigHand is one of the big players in the digital dictation services sector, maintaining the five largest sites at international law firms. They have more legal installations than all the other suppliers combined.
Howrey’s reasons for upgrading are the need for a reliable, centralized, and cost-effective solution. The G2 system could apparently not offer a long term, reliable dictation solution. Dictations and transcriptions were being lost everyday. This meant a lot of pressure on the IT team, as well as an expensive affair, as lawyers had to re-dictate lost recordings. The DictaNet system’s centralization and deployment issue will see its recession in the next few months.
The main reason for BigHand being on board is their second generation BlackBerry dictation application. All of Howrey’s lawyers use BlackBerry devices and that will therefore be the most obvious thing to do, simply and cost effectively improve their ability to work remotely, either at home, on site or while travelling.
Daryl Hogg, European IT manager at Howrey, said “Howrey is committed to implementing best of breed technology, and BigHand's leading status in the global legal community is without doubt. BigHand enables us to centralize our infrastructure; centralized coordination will enable ease of deployment, control and support.”
As recently as January 2008, the company reported saving a US law firm $1,500 per lawyer in administrative costs as well as improving document turnaround by 300 percent. In planning for the future, BigHand's integration with Interwoven (News - Alert) is also very impressive, and will certainly feature in their pipeline.
David Jones, head of European Sales at BigHand said, “We anticipate multiple benefits for Howrey LLP, specifically through the introduction of BlackBerry dictation functionality and the exploration of BigHand's tie in with the interwoven document management system. I am confident of a win-win project for Howrey; for the business and for the lawyers and secretaries themselves.”
Calvin Azuri is a TMCnet contributing journalist.