Highlands firm secures higher levels of client service output

Anderson Shaw & Gilbert reap the rewards of more self-sufficient fee earners and better visibility of support team workloads.

Anderson Shaw & Gilbert are a mid-sized Solicitors and Estate Agents based in Inverness, with a presence in Ullapool and operating throughout the Highlands of Scotland. Established since 1881, it is fair to say that they are one of the most established law firms in the area. Their location and size mean that remaining agile in their working processes is at the top of their priority list in order to deliver the highest level of client service.

After commencing the provision of a legal service in Ullapool to meet the demand of their growing client base, the firm decided to assess their working processes and adopt a more flexible strategy to ensure work was being turned around in the most efficient way.

Iain McDonald, Director at Anderson Shaw and Gilbert, comments on the previous set-up: “We traditionally used tapes for our dictation needs and have used a ‘pool’ structure for our legal secretaries for some time. After looking at where we could be more efficient, it became apparent that we lacked visibility of what work was being completed at any one time, or by which member of the team. This in itself was leading to time being wasted simply trying to track work down.”

Another issue faced by the firm was that the Solicitors, Estate Agents and Letting Agents had no way of sending work on the go and would have to wait until they were in the office to hand their dictation to the pool of secretaries. This meant that backlogs of work were inevitable, especially during busy holiday times.

The firm’s IT consultant recommended BigHand after seeing it successfully implemented in other firms. Iain continues: “After seeing an online demo of BigHand Professional and BigHand Speech Recognition, it was a no-brainer. The software’s ease of use and simple installation spoke for itself. We could see instantly how it would benefit the firm by increasing efficiency and client service output. The online training was also very valuable.”

In the short time since implementing the technology, the firm are already starting to reap the results. Previously, low priority typing tasks such as file notes often built up in order to prioritise higher value work. Now, with BigHand Speech Recognition the backlog of these tasks has diminished and document turnaround times have improved. Iain comments, “People are a firm’s biggest asset, and typing up notes all day is not the best use of that resource. Now that our fee earners are using BigHand Speech Recognition for a number of tasks, including creating file notes, I’m pleased that our support staff can now work on higher value work for more of their time.”

The firm now have full visibility of all dictated tasks, along with the ability for these dictations to be sent on the move via the BigHand Go app. They can also change the priority of the task to ensure no deadlines are missed. All this has increased their overall business efficiency by adding transparency that simply wasn’t available before.

Iain concludes: “I’ve been really impressed with the accuracy levels of BigHand Speech Recognition, even with my broad brogue accent! We now have the tools needed to complete urgent out-of-hours work ourselves, rather than having to wait for the transcription. Overall, the flexibility that BigHand has provided us with has improved our business efficiencies no end, and I look forward to seeing our new working processes increase the on-boarding of more work for the firm.”

Reserve your pass today at Europe’s largest legal technology conference and exhibition