City firm uses Voicepath for secretary-less office

03 May 2005

Outsourced legal transcription specialist, Voicepath, has proved that it can provide law firms with a service that is even more efficient, timely and cost-effective than internal support staff, as City firm Reynolds Colman Bradley uses Voicepath to run a secretary free office.

The firm, which is based in the Lloyds Building, was founded in 2003 and is committed to running on the principle of maximum efficiency and minimum overheads. As such it was keen to keep its expenditure on support staff down.

With this in mind the firm contacted Voicepath about outsourcing its transcription work to the company’s network of home-based legal secretaries.

Firm partner, Nick Colman, comments: “I am not saying that there is no need for legal secretaries. Clearly there is a role for them, but it depends on the nature of the practice. In our case, going down the route we have chosen gives us significant cost and labour savings. Using legal secretaries purely for typing means bigger office space, and in the City for every extra square foot you are talking telephone numbers – and that matters.”

Voicepath’s system works by integrating seamlessly into the firm’s existing IT systems. It allows fee earners to send a dictation to one of Voicepath’s secretaries via a secure internet connection. This is then typed up and returned to the firm by the same means, typically within the hour.

Nick concludes: “In these days, given the extra burden in the forms of regulatory pressures and general expenses, careful consideration needs to be given to all aspects of running a practice. Employing secretaries would have a serious effect on our overheads.

“Voicepath’s input has helped us to succeed and to grow in today’s highly competitive commercial law environment. We look forward to continuing our relationship with them in the future.”