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Nabarro Nathanson is piloting BigHand's TotalSpeech digital dictation software in an initiative that will enable the firm to move work instantly from busy secretaries to those with more capacity, and also make it possible to transfer dictations between the London and Reading offices. Nabarro Nathanson expects TotalSpeech to encourage more effective use of secretarial resources and to improve the flow of work within the pilot groups. Overall, the key objective is that TotalSpeech should enable a more efficient and quicker turnaround of documents and thus benefit the firm's clients directly.

Approximately 50 staff across Nabarro Nathanson's Property and Charities Groups will receive TotalSpeech during the pilot. Solicitors based in Reading will also be able to send dictations back in seconds to secretarial support when in London on business. If the initiative is successful the firm expects to roll out the software this year. Among a number of factors, Nabarro Nathanson's decision to use BigHand was based on the company's current position as market leader, the fact that TotalSpeech was designed and developed specifically for UK lawyers, and that many City law firms are already utilising TotalSpeech on a large scale.

Nabarro Nathanson's Chief Information Officer, Nick Taylor-Delahoy, commented:

"The growing reputation of their workflow product 'TotalSpeech' was a major factor in selecting BigHand. We hope the added efficiency and flexibility that TotalSpeech can provide the firm will translate to document turnaround and, in its own way, our service to clients."

"BigHand also adopt a partnership approach that certainly sets them apart - we are able to contribute directly to the development path of TotalSpeech and therefore ensure that our future requirements are met. In terms of digital dictation we could not have got a service like this anywhere else."

Sophisticated server-based workflow software and compression technology enables TotalSpeech to operate easily over a firms network. A number of BigHand clients in the legal sector are now even using the software on an international basis. This capability can enable a firm to take advantage of remote and home working, as well as regional differences in costs, salaries and time zones.

Nabarro Nathanson's IT Director, Richard Elson, stated: "The fact that when a lawyer returns to the office he/she has to pass his secretary a pile of tapes, while a PC sits idle on the desk beside them, strikes me as both outmoded and wholly inefficient. TotalSpeech offers the opportunity to utilise all our computer equipment while providing some impressive workflow benefits. It has to be the logical way forward."

Notes

Nabarro Nathanson Nabarro Nathanson is one of the UK's leading commercial law firms. The firm has more than 450 lawyers offering a broad range of legal services to major national and international corporate, government, institutional and public sector clients. Nabarro Nathanson has international capabilities, with approximately 25 per cent of its work undertaken on behalf of clients based overseas. Further information is available at www.nabarro.com