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Corporate and commercial law firm SJ Berwin is rolling out BigHand's TotalSpeech Digital Dictation system to the whole of its 120 strong Property Department as the firm begins to move away from increasingly outmoded analogue tape systems. The initiative makes SJ Berwin one of the first Top 20 firms to introduce Digital Dictation software in a trend that is expected to see many law firms take advantage of cutting edge dictation systems such as TotalSpeech. The SJ Berwin project will become one of the largest sites of Digital Dictation 'workflow' technology in the UK legal sector.

Phase 1 has seen TotalSpeech successfully running in one of the largest client service teams within the Property Department for over 2 months. Phase 2, with the software going across the whole department, is already underway. The Property department accounts for 20% of the firm's business. If the rollout to Property Department is successful, the rest of the Firm may adopt TotalSpeech in due course.

Chief Executive Keith Wood commented: "As a forward thinking business, we are constantly seeking to optimise the use of resources available to us; TotalSpeech appears to offer the opportunity to reduce the cost of producing written material for clients and to provide secretarial staff with the tools to enhance their contribution to supporting fee earners".

SJ Berwin is conducting this project in the context of a range of initiatives aimed at changing internal working practices - ultimately for clients' benefits. The software enables transcription to be shared more easily and it allows management to monitor secretarial performance, redistribute work to areas with more capacity and reduce the use of supplementary personnel. One of the benefits of Digital Dictation is that instead of work backing up it is dealt with immediately, which ultimately results in clients receiving their documents sooner.

SJ Berwin IT Director Simon Kosminsky said: "We are happy with the progress of this project. 'Law at the speed of business' is our commitment to better client service. Technology that can genuinely streamline internal workflow is rare, but TotalSpeech appears to provide some impressive benefits on that front."

With TotalSpeech, a sound file recorded by the fee earner is automatically saved on the network, and instantly picked up by the secretary on his or her PC. The system means dictations get to a secretary instantly and are split up into smaller 'user friendly' segments. Dictations can then be redistributed to groups or secretaries that are less busy. In addition, BigHand TotalSpeech offers improved sound quality that can help typing accuracy and speed.

SJ Berwin Head of Property, Stephen Willson, added: "We are already seeing from just one group that TotalSpeech can provide greater flexibility for our fee-earners. The ability to break up work into more manageable segments and to monitor the progress of their work on screen, will all help to make our solicitors more productive and in turn benefit our clients. I am pleased that the Property Department is again taking a lead in improving its service to clients."