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Matthew Arnold & Baldwin, the leading commercial law firm in Hertfordshire, has chosen to implement BigHand's award-winning TotalSpeech digital dictation software. The decision sees them opt for a specialist DDS developer with technical expertise, rather than an ordinary reseller.

Matthew Arnold & Baldwin will work with BigHand to configure different options for the queuing of work; make adjustments to dictation workflow efficiency in preparation for the roll out; and contribute to the development path of TotalSpeech going forward. BigHand also specialise in reengineering dictation workflow for law firms and currently have the largest DDS client base in the legal market.

Nick Mercer, Matthew Arnold & Baldwin's Business Manager, commented:

"BigHand specialise in this technology for law firms and are major players in this market, supplying more top 100 law firms with digital dictation than all the other vendors combined. TotalSpeech has also won several legal technology awards. This gave us the guarantee of product and service quality that we were after - and you only need to speak to a current BigHand client to appreciate the extent to which they, and their product, are valued."

Phase 1 of the project will see Matthew Arnold & Baldwin's litigation team receive the software. TotalSpeech will be tested for about a month, with workflow adjustments made as necessary and in preparation for the roll out across the firm. Eventually 70 users, from a total of 120 staff, are expected to be equipped with TotalSpeech team by team.

Nick Mercer continued:

"The major benefits of TotalSpeech are that each dictation job is sent from author to transcriber as it is completed, and the digital sound is much clearer, of CD quality, so it is much easier for the transcriber to hear what has been said, unlike the fuzzy old tapes. The fact that each job goes off as it is finished normally results in a smoother flow of work to the secretaries than bundles of files and stacks of tapes all arriving in big 'lumps'."

"TotalSpeech also includes a sophisticated workflow engine. This manages the saving of the sound files on the network, the sound file labelling and retrieval; and it enables different options to be taken for the queuing of work. This enables one-on-one, or team working by the transcribers as is suitable to their needs. And it can be changed easily as circumstances dictate. "

ENDS
Notes

Matthew Arnold & Baldwin

Matthew Arnold & Baldwin based in Watford is one of the leading commercial law firms in the northern Home Counties and the leading law firm in Hertfordshire. Established in Watford in 1900, the firm has 17 partners, 70 fee-earners and a total staff of 120. Its clients include Barclays Bank, Nissan Finance, AXA Sunlife, Europcar, Bosch, Computacenter and Watford Football Club.The number of fee-earners has increased by 23% in the last two years. Key departments include company commercial; commercial litigation; debt collection; insolvency; intellectual property; IT and e-commerce; commercial property; residential conveyancing; estates development; employment; tax, trusts and probate; and family.

Contacts: Nick Mercer, Business Manager