Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C., has joined the growing number of law firms across the country to have recently implemented the award-winning BigHand Digital Dictation system. The firm no longer has to deal with tapes breaking, lost dictations, tape machine repairs, and the inability to efficiently get tapes into the right hands for on-the-fly transcriptions and processing. The BigHand system allows attorneys to send dictated case notes instantly to their assistants even if they are out of the office, in another meeting or leaving to go home.

    WHD quickly realized that the technology of dictating had rapidly progressed, from an antiquated, manual "dictate to tape" process to a "voice workflow" scenario, focused on delivering strategic IT and administrative objectives such as controlling equipment costs, enhancing attorney and staff productivity via mobility, and encouraging inter and intra-office teamwork.

    The system creates 'virtual teams' across the firm that means secretaries have the capability to team together and ensure documents get out of the door to clients twice as quickly. Attorneys can even email dictation into their assistants when they are at court, at a client site or even on vacation - dramatically speeding up the drafting and production process.
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    "Recently I needed to get a lengthy analysis letter typed up in the evening but due to inclement weather; Madison didn't have coverage in the resource center. Rather than imposing on one of the daytime assistants to stay late (and incur overtime costs), we were able to transfer the dictation file via Citrix to the Milwaukee resource center, and my draft was waiting for me when I got in this morning. The system was very well planned, rolled out and implemented. Once the firm gets accustomed to it, it should pay big dividends in efficiency and greater flexibility," described Richard Lewandowski, WHD attorney, about the impact of BigHand Digital Dictation software

    In terms of usability, BigHand offers total visibility in one window, real-time tracking and pop-up alerts (to let secretaries know when a dictation is ready for transcription). The firm has nearly 200 users on the new system, which allows them to dictate using a handheld recording device that syncs the dictation files with the BigHand server or transcribe using a headset and foot pedal through an office PC or via the Web through a Citrix connection.