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Denton Wilde Sapte has started the largest roll out of digital dictation workflow software in the UK legal sector. Some 1000 users in total across three offices are due to receive BigHand's TotalSpeech software by the end of the year, with the whole of Denton's Chancery Lane office already up and running. The firm joins an exclusive group in the UK to have scaled digital dictation workflow above 500 users, and the Denton's project will eventually become the largest DDS site in the country's legal sector.

Denton Wilde Sapte's technology department is managing the TotalSpeech roll out internally, after BigHand transferred all necessary technical skills and knowledge during the pilot phase.

Michael Kan, Denton's Business Analyst/Project Manager, who is in charge of the roll out, commented:

"Feedback from the users, trainers, and the support analysts who have been installing the equipment, is positive. The roll out has been able to progress smoothly and successfully due to careful planning of the project at the start, the dedication of the project team, and the relative ease of this system. BigHand's Support during the rollout has been prompt and knowledgeable"

Earlier this year Denton's ran a successful TotalSpeech pilot across the Employment & Pensions, TMT-IP and Tax departments, with over 100 staff making the successful transition to digital dictation workflow from manual tapes.A post-pilot pilot study revealed 90% of Denton's secretaries felt TotalSpeech improved the flow of work across their department, and all of the secretaries involved recommended a firm-wide rollout. Meanwhile 90% of fee-earners felt TotalSpeech had improved the flow of work across the department and 98% of fee-earners recommended to roll out TotalSpeech firm wide.

During the pilot TotalSpeech enabled dictations to be sent regularly between Denton Wilde Sapte's two City offices. The server side of TotalSpeech uses innovative three-tier architecture thereby allowing multiple TotalSpeech Service, File stores and Databases to be distributed at the firm's discretion. This architecture enables TotalSpeech to be multi-sited and load balanced, as the product's server-based 'Service' software monitors & controls the management, transfer and upload of dictations. Maximising network efficiency in this way is critical when considering a large scale, firm wide roll out to over 500 users.

In addition to its architecture, the efficiency of TotalSpeech's CoDec and remote working technology also enables fee-earners to send dictations immediately while abroad, at meetings, at home or while travelling. Denton Wilde Sapte is currently focusing on the office-based installation of TotalSpeech, while continuing to test a variety of remote devices and dial-in transfer of dictations.

As Geoff Storey, Denton's Applications Development Manager, commented:

"TotalSpeech contains a compact workflow engine, which is key in making it both popular with users and enabling a smooth technical implementation."

ENDS
Notes
Denton Wilde Sapte

Denton Wilde Sapte is a leading global law firm headquartered in the City of London. With an expanding network of offices and associates in Europe, Central and South-East Asia, the Middle East and Africa, they combine world-class industry skills with cutting-edge financial and corporate capabilities. Denton Wilde Sapte are recognised for their sector strengths in banking and finance, energy and infrastructure, technology, media and telecoms, real estate, retail, insurance and aviation.
www.dentonwildesapte.com

BigHand

BigHand's leading product 'TotalSpeech' recently won the Society for Computers & Law 2003 Award for "the most outstanding application of information technology to the law in UK and Ireland". TotalSpeech was also voted Best Legal Office Automation System at the Legal Office Technology Awards 2002.BigHand is the leading independent digital dictation and speech recognition consultancy in the UK legal market, maintaining the highest number of digital dictation installations in the sector. BigHand is a leading supplier of IT services to City law firms.

Further information is available at http://www.big-hand.co.uk

Contacts: Dan Speed, Marketing Manager, 020 7793 3076, danspeed@big-hand.co.uk