Response to article: 40 firms become standard bearers for secretaries (Gazette 6.3.08)

13 March 2008

We read with interest your article on the new competency standards for secretaries from the Institute of Paralegals. Traditional secretarial tasks such as audio typing ceasing to be cost effective, rising secretarial salaries and the rapidly changing role of the secretary within law firms are all contributing factors for the new standards and qualifications. Certainly, these are issues that we are increasingly hearing from our customers in the move to outsource their transcription requirements.

In our experience, when outsourcing transcription to a specialist provider, the up-skilling of legal secretaries has worked most effectively for both the secretary and the firm where there has been a clear commercial awareness and commitment to it from a senior partner combined with the appropriate HR and technical support. The adoption of the standards should be viewed by firms as an ideal opportunity to reassess their own workflow efficiencies as well as promoting career progression within the firm.

Richard Bate
General Manager, Voicepath