Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners, Technology

Speech-To-Text Dictation For Lawyers: What You Need To Know

Digital dictation is a great efficiency driver, and there are many technological options for lawyers seeking to use it.

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Latina lawyer diversity cellphone smartphone iPhone textingThese days, technology offers solo and small-firm lawyers more options than ever. No longer are lawyers tethered to cluttered, paper-covered desks. Instead, 21st century lawyers are mobile, agile, and nimble, able to practice law effectively and cost-efficiently from just about any location.

One type of technology that has come of age in recent years that offers solo and small-firm lawyers great flexibility while saving incredible amounts of time is speech-to-text transcription. For lawyers who have moved toward a paperless office, this type of digital dictation is a great efficiency driver. And, the good news is that there are a number of options for lawyers seeking to use speech-to-text dictation in their law firms.

For Apple fans, there are two options: the digital dictation tool built into iOS devices or the digital dictation capabilities available on most Mac computers. With these tools, you dictate into your mobile device or laptop and your speech is typically sent to cloud servers to be converted. And then, after a very short delay, the text appears on your device in front of you.

With mobile devices, you’re only able to input a certain amount of text at a time – usually about 20 seconds or so – and then you need to re-start the process. There is no such limitation with Macs. Also with Macs, you have the option of enabling Enhanced Dictation, which allows the speech processing to occur locally, on your device, so you can dictate even while offline. You can learn more about enabling speech-to-text dictation on your Mac with the El Capitan operating system here.

If you use an Android device, you also have the option of enabling speech-to-text transcription. Like the iOS feature, it sends voice data to a cloud server to be converted into text. For tips on using Android’s voice-to-text feature successfully, check out this post.

The nice thing about the tools built into Apple and Android devices is that they’re free. But if you’d prefer a slightly more robust system and are willing to pay for it, consider Dragon Dictate. This software is not platform-specific, which is a bonus, so you can use it whether you’re a Mac fan or a Windows-user. Depending on the version you choose, you’ll end up shelling out a few hundred dollars. But by doing so, you’ll have invested in a quality product that allows your speech to be immediately processed locally, on your own machine rather than in the cloud. You can learn more about how one lawyer used Dragon Dictate in his practice from this post I wrote a year ago.

Of course, no matter which tool you choose, there will be transcription errors, and you’ll need to carefully review documents to correct them. Even so, in my experience I’ve found that the time saved using speech-to-text dictation is well worth the inconvenience of having to edit your document, something you would have had to do in any event.

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Some of you may have concerns about security or the possibility of waiving attorney-client privilege. After all, with many of these methods, your device sends your recorded speech to cloud servers for processing it and conversion to text, and the data is sometimes retained to assist in providing better data interpretation in the future.

However, I would suggest that based on prior ethics rulings, using speech-to-text dictation may be permissible in many jurisdictions. For systems where the text is stored locally, such as paid versions of Dragon Dictation (as opposed to their free mobile app) or the Enhanced Dictation available on Macs, it’s clear that it’s permissible. But even where the voice data is sent to cloud servers to be processed, there are arguments in favor of it being ethical.

First, I would argue that the cloud servers that process speech input are no different than the third-party servers through which emails between lawyers and clients travel and are stored. And since the mid-1990s, the use of email by lawyers to discuss and share confidential information remains ethical in most cases. (See ABA Formal Opinion No. 99-413.)

Furthermore, the processing of speech by cloud servers is analogous to the process that occurs when Gmail’s servers scan your emails in order to provide relevant ads. This practice was given the green light by New York State Bar Association in 2008 when the Committee on Professional Ethics concluded that since the contents of emails were being processed by a machine, not a person, for the limited purpose of serving up relevant content, it was ethically permissible to use Gmail for confidential client communications. (New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics Opinion 820-2/08/08).

Of course, it’s always important to review and fully understand the applicability of your jurisdiction’s ethics rules. But don’t let that scare you off. Give these tools a chance. They’re effective, convenient, and cost-effective. For some lawyers, especially those in solo or small firms, they really can make a difference.

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Niki BlackNicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

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