The Orange Rag - from Legal Technology Insider

And then we turned into Father Jack

Charles Christian — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Imagine our surprise and delight at Villa d'Orange when a courier service delivered a carefully wrapped package marked Caution – contains glass. A quick look confirmed it contained bottled liquid and was from TM Search Choice. Was it a half bottle of champagne or perhaps a fine vintage wine, along with a crystal goblet, to promote their new local authority search service?

Strange, there was a glass – nice bit of Dartington – but it was a tumbler. And that certainly wasn't vintage wine in a screw-top bottle – in fact it was a clear liquid. Ah, maybe it was vodka – perhaps to celebrate breaking free of the Stalinist grasp of the NLIS hub?

No. It wasn't vodka either – it was water – to emphasise that TM's local searches are "drawn directly from source" (Geddit?) Water! At this point we found ourselves turning into the Father Jack character out of the old Father Ted TV series... Water! Feck! Drink! Feck! Still, at least TM got their plug.

November American Insider out now

Charles Christian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

The November issue of American Legal Technology Insider newsletter (issue #16) is out now. Top stories include one law firm's experiences with Windows 7 and the Bighand server-side speech recognition launch. The next issue is out on 3rd December. You can find the latest issue attached below – to receive it free of charge direct to your email in-box just email altisubs@legaltechnology.com

IRIS launch pay-as-you-go service for Scotland

Charles Christian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:05:00 +0000

IRIS today announced the availability of IRIS Law Scotland, a brand new, fresh and modern practice and case management system designed specifically for Scottish law. With over 200 Scottish legal firms already using IRIS solutions, IRIS has harnessed years of experience and feedback to create IRIS Law Scotland. As well as being designed specifically for Scottish legal professionals, IRIS Law Scotland is supported by a dedicated team based in IRIS’ Bridge of Allan office.

Brian Welsh, General Manager for IRIS Legal & Property in Scotland, said; “IRIS Law Scotland is designed to ensure that Scottish law firms can evolve to benefit from increasing changes in market conditions. It is a fully integrated modular solution capable of fulfilling the requirements of any practice irrespective of its size or speciality.”

IRIS Law Scotland is available as a complete solution or as a range of stand-alone case applications including wills and executry, conveyancing, personal injury and debt recovery. The solution minimises costs and maximises profitability through the efficient management of cases and the wider practice. IRIS Law Scotland is also available through a highly secure, hosted environment and presents a radically new way to access and pay for functionally rich software. Options are available for delivery on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis, perfect for smaller firms who would prefer to concentrate on their legal clients than managing an IT system. Prices for ‘pay-as-you-go’ start from £95 per user per month.

• IRIS Law Scotland is supplied by IRIS Legal & Property Solutions (Scotland), formerly GB Systems.
www.iris.co.uk/lawscotland

Bighand launch server side speech recognition

Charles Christian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

At the company's EMEA user conference in London today, Bighand launched its new Server-based Speech Recognition module aimed at organisations looking to further streamline administrative overheads in the current climate, or support an upturn in work as the economy recovers. The new voice-to-text module also supports voice submission from Blackberrys and smartphones, alongside traditional dictation hardware. The Bighand server-side speech recognition add-on is part of the latest v3.3 release of Bighand’s digital dictation workflow software.

The speech recognition module (which utilises the Dragon NatuallySpeaking Speech Server from Nuance Communications) includes both a speech recognition only option, where the Transcription Server sends the resulting text back to the author, as well as a speech recognition with proofing option where the Transcription Server sends the resulting text to a secretary.

The secretary performs any corrections, saves the document and then submits a copy of the corrected document. Once submitted the server-based speech file of the original author is upgraded, improving their results going forward. The author can still correct their own speech file if so desired. Moving the correction of the speech file to the secretary completely removes the time burden from the author and enables no change to their current working practices. As a result, even though there is minimal training, the author’s speech file continues to improve over time.

In testing the Transcription Server returned a 233 word initial recording with 178 words correctly recognized (76.4%). After the first correction, the transcription server improved to recognise 226 of the words (97%), and by the third submission the server based system recognised 232 words (99.6%).

The overall total cost of ownership of the new back-end or server-side speech recognition module is estimated to be as little as one third the cost of existing client-side/desktop speech recognition solutions. The module is licensed per user or per server, with minimal training required, no client-side installation and, subsequently, no loss of billable time. Additional features include Citrix & Terminal Services compatibility, document templates & bookmarks, acoustic modeling, vocabularies configured in Bighand System Administration, default and custom speaker profiles for different users of Bighand, and support for distributed Transcription Servers.

Aside from the Server-side Speech Recognition module other new features within BigHand 3.3 include:
•    Document attachments & links within the workflow
•    New search engine & User Interface improvements
•    Support for Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2
•    64-bit support extended to incorporate Terminal Client
•    Splitting of voice files & extended external sound file support
•    New & extended API for 3rd party developers

New podcast by Charles Christian

Charles Christian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Here's a link to a new podcast I was interviewed for by Charon QC of Insite Law Magazine – and yes, I'm talking all about legal technology trends...

www.insitelawmagazine.com/charonpodcast159.htm