Legal diction software

Ush1

I'm doing a bit of research into creating diction software for legal professionals.

I understand that usually an application is used to record the diction and then normally the audio file is sent to a secretary to be typed up.

How long would those audio recordings usually be can anyone tell me?

Mr. Incognito

Ten minute blocks is the normal that our secretaries look for - to break the dictation into ten minutes or less.

Most firms use integrated legal software like Keyhouse or Evolve which already have dictation built in.

Ush1

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Ten minute blocks is the normal that our secretaries look for - to break the dictation into ten minutes or less.

Most firms use integrated legal software like Keyhouse or Evolve which already have dictation built in.

Thanks for that.

I'm looking to have this as standalone diction software but will use voice recognition to transcribe automatically. Do you reckon that's something that would interest firms? From the point of saving money and time on secretaries having to type it or would the integration be critical?

Victor

From looking at transcripts, there is an existing problem with getting 'nearly the right word'. I suspect the transcripts I've seen were from shorthand.

A computer will have a problem deciding which of the words is correct, as it will have problems with context.

There is existing voice to text software out there.

Ush1

Victor wrote: »

From looking at transcripts, there is an existing problem with getting 'nearly the right word'. I suspect the transcripts I've seen were from shorthand.

A computer will have a problem deciding which of the words is correct, as it will have problems with context.

There is existing voice to text software out there.

Not sure what you mean by nearly getting the right word? I can create a custom voice api for unusual definitions or phrases etc..

If there is existing softwares, I'm curious why most legal firms have secretaries transcribe it.

Victor

Ush1 wrote: »

Not sure what you mean by nearly getting the right word?

There, they're, their.

If there is existing softwares, I'm curious why most legal firms have secretaries transcribe it.

Tradition.

Would the secretary be employed anyway?

Does the software get it right?

Are they happy with IT security, especially with online checking, etc.

missyb01

My boss sends dictation files ranging from 10 mins to 50 mins. As far as doing doing voice recognition transcribing or whatever the full title is, we had looked into last year and it was a no go. The solicitors would have to dictate every word ie client name, address, subject, court record numbers and so on. The two partners would not have the time for that as they only dictate the body of the letter or else some times we could get "the usual paragraph there please" And they also felt it wouldn't work when it came to dictating Bill of Costs

Ush1

Victor wrote: »

There, they're, their.



Tradition.

Would the secretary be employed anyway?

Does the software get it right?

Are they happy with IT security, especially with online checking, etc.

Ah okay. Well the API I'm using shouldn't have that issue with grammar.

I could do the diction and then run checks on the document after. If a firm had maybe five secretaries doing diction, they could potentially reduce that to one just proof reading the automated transcripts?

me_irl

I've used the Professional version of this.. but there is a legal one too.

https://www.nuance.com/dragon/business-solutions/dragon-legal-individual.html

Ush1

missyb01 wrote: »

My boss sends dictation files ranging from 10 mins to 50 mins. As far as doing doing voice recognition transcribing or whatever the full title is, we had looked into last year and it was a no go. The solicitors would have to dictate every word ie client name, address, subject, court record numbers and so on. The two partners would not have the time for that as they only dictate the body of the letter or else some times we could get "the usual paragraph there please" And they also felt it wouldn't work when it came to dictating Bill of Costs

Thanks for that. Food for thought.

Good point regarding dictate client name etc... I think it would have to be a fully integrated system where you could select the court record etc from the app and then dictate so it would auto populate those fields.

Samuel T. Cogley

My father worked for a tax-law publishing firm, nothing fancy - well actually it was an amazingly skilled job - but not well paid or anything like that. The advances of databases have been credited with 'saving the common law tradition' by some. It was becoming more and more difficult to manually track cases etc. Why am I waffling on about this...

CD-ROMs came in, the very pinnacle of modern technology. A searchable medium, frequently updated, a marvel. What did 95% of the client base keep using for years... that's right binders you fecked the old pages out of and put new ones in.

Not_A_Racist

This field will move very quickly.

It's possible that a technology company could use artifical intelligence and automation to drastically change professional sectors like law, accounting, insurance and design.

I suspect dictating letters is something IBMs Watson would be capable of, and if not now, then in the near to medium near future.


For the OP. I think the process of proof reading computer generated letters is different from creating a written letter from a recorded tape. There might not be time savings by using voice recognition and the staff have to learn new skills.

When the day comes that the computers are good enough to fully understand natural language the computer would be capable of writing the letters itself. Perhaps 5 to 10 years. Something to think about for school leavers when choosing a course.

Victor

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

I suspect dictating letters is something IBMs Watson would be capable of, and if not now, then in the near to medium near future.

Perhaps, but would you trust the client privilege / data protection implications?

tinpib

There is a dictation function on the Microsoft Word 2010 for Mac. I have had a mac for 9 years, I found about this 3 months ago.

Go 'edi't - 'start dictation' [or fn fn as a shortcut]

It's not perfect but it helps save time, if that is what is important to you.

I don't know about any legal implications. I'm just using it to waffle away into to get a very rough draft of a book down. Then go back and shape and edit it myself.

Peregrinus

Most lawyers, given the choice of using dictation/transcription software and learning to type, will learn to type. It's generally quicker )and much less tedious) to type your text than to dictate it for automatic transcription, and then edit/correct/complete the transcript. So I think the market for this is a narrow one, and probably a declining one.

Voice-to-transcript software is most useful for people whose work pattern isn't consistent with sitting at a desk typing - e.g. people who work in the field, and have to produce reports, like surveyors or inspectors. Or journalists who phone copy in. That kind of thing.

Not_A_Racist

I said IBMs Watson wil be used in the future by the legal industry.

Victor wrote: »

Perhaps, but would you trust the client privilege / data protection implications?

I don't consider that there are any such considerations at the moment.

Are there client privilege or DP concerns today if you use a secretary to transcribe dictated letters?
The issue is the same with Watson, except there is no secretary.

Solicitors use computer systems now and they aren't considered to have revealed personal information to the computer when they enter data.

IBMs Watson would be the same, (a computer system), unless in the future we declare it to be somethign else. If it has true intelligence and claims to be conscious we may well afford it a new status that doesn't exist today.


The computer will perform to a higher standard than humans and your customers will demand that you use computers to double check your work. The same with medical diagnosis.


The computer will also be able to pass legal exams and become qualified if that was allowed, with far higher results than humans.
I suspect an examiner would know a paper had been written by a computer because of the sheer number of case references and obscure references.

Mr. Incognito

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

The computer will perform to a higher standard than humans and your customers will demand that you use computers to double check your work.

Not in my experience.

Computers due to the nature of coding cannot process context.

They have to have decision trees which are prepopulated and law is too varied, variable and examines the nuances of language.

The same word can have ten different definitions depending on the Act being applied and the context.

I use dictation for letters.

I draft my own pleadings or send it to a secretary who is legally trained and knows the context.

It will be many many many many years if any before someone ever comes close to coming up with suitable software.

It's too specialised a field.

The ultimate flaw is that there is no ANSWER or result. Merely arguments and competing arguments on the same thing that are to be tested

A computer has not been invented yet that can make what Steinbeck referred to as the "leap of imagination" until AI is invented.

Samuel T. Cogley

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

The computer will also be able to pass legal exams and become qualified if that was allowed, with far higher results than humans.
I suspect an examiner would know a paper had been written by a computer because of the sheer number of case references and obscure references.

Legal qualifications (well barristers anyway) require a knowledge of the Philosophy of law known as Jurisprudence. I think we're a fair way off from a computer understanding Dworkin.

Have a read of this NAR and tell me what the computer does.

Not_A_Racist

Ai has already been invented and already exists.

The correct question to ask is; at what level of intelligence is the AI at today?

It's very difficult to measure intelligence. We can only measure performance on certain tasks, not on all tasks.

I'm confident that in the near future AI computers will be able to pass legal exams and achieve better marks than the best humans.
Would people then concede that the AI computers are better than humans at law?
After all, exam performance is how we judge humans.


I'm not claiming that consumer level products are there yet.
A Japanese insurance company has replaced an office of 200 claims assessors with a single IBM Watson system already, this year. This IBM system reads and responds to customer emails in natural language, and it exists in a real commercial environment today, in 2017.


Understanding natural language, and all its subtleties, is as difficult as law itself. Yet, despite that, the problem is being solved and may soon be solved.

Samuel T. Cogley

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

I'm confident that in the near future AI computers will be able to pass legal exams and achieve better marks than the best humans.
Would people then concede that the AI computers are better than humans at law?
After all, exam performance is how we judge humans.

This is the fundamental flaw in your argument. We judge students on exam performance. We Judge lawyers on their ability to win cases and then later on the ramifications of those cases. A minority opinion will frequently be cited to support an argument in a later case.

Could a computer decide a case based on positive, settled law better than a human, well given the criteria of positive settled law then yes because it would ignore all other constraints. I'm sure it would conclude the guards shooting people from the Berlin wall were innocent - is that it being better at law however?

Not_A_Racist

There is nothing to prevent an artifically intelligent computer from being good at law, and even at being better at law than humans.

Humans have no magical qualities that allow them to be good at law.

It could be argued that the current system of law and of jurisprudence is artifically more complex than it needs to be, and that it is more complex than it needs to be in order to act as a barrier to entry for newcomers. It requires many years of study to understand the subtleties.


I'm surprised that people have such doubt about AI. The whole point of AI is that humans will be superceded and will become obselete.

I accept that a computer will not be able to stand up in court and give a rousing closing argument.
Is the personal performance of a barrister in court part of the legal system?
It would appear to be in the sense that if you cannot perform well in court you cannot perform well as a lawyer.
Cases are supposed to be decided on the facts, not on how the facts are presented.
But if facts are presented poorly then they don't carry the weight they would have carried if presented well.


Those aspects of the law are tricky for computers but reading case law and understanding its subtleties is fairly easy for an advanced AI. The computer will also do much better at reading and understanding hand written legal documents from the 1750s and thereabouts too.
I downloaded some legal packs from Allsops and there were some handwritten leases from the 1750s. There could easily have been very important info in there that's hard to access. Computers will do much better at that than humans, whereas humans are better able to present cases in court.

Victor

So, what happens when Watson shares your case with a competitor? Or your client's competitor?

Samuel T. Cogley

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

There is nothing to prevent an artifically intelligent computer from being good at law, and even at being better at law than humans.

Humans have no magical qualities that allow them to be good at law.

They absolutely do.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

It could be argued that the current system of law and of jurisprudence is artifically more complex than it needs to be, and that it is more complex than it needs to be in order to act as a barrier to entry for newcomers. It requires many years of study to understand the subtleties.

You seem to be unwilling to read even the most basic, day one material - I find it hard to take the argument that it's being made overly complex. Law is not a set of IF THEN statements, it's layers of abstraction.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

I'm surprised that people have such doubt about AI. The whole point of AI is that humans will be superceded and will become obselete.

This is getting a bit Battlestar Galatica now.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

I accept that a computer will not be able to stand up in court and give a rousing closing argument.

Why not? If it can understand law then it should be able to make a convincing argument.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

Is the personal performance of a barrister in court part of the legal system?
It would appear to be in the sense that if you cannot perform well in court you cannot perform well as a lawyer.

You can peform excellently in any number of areas of law, but if you can't make a convincing argument you shouldn't be involved in that element.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

Cases are supposed to be decided on the facts, not on how the facts are presented.
But if facts are presented poorly then they don't carry the weight they would have carried if presented well.

Facts and convincing argument. It's how does one decide that the law in a regard is wrong?

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

Those aspects of the law are tricky for computers but reading case law and understanding its subtleties is fairly easy for an advanced AI. The computer will also do much better at reading and understanding hand written legal documents from the 1750s and thereabouts too.
I downloaded some legal packs from Allsops and there were some handwritten leases from the 1750s. There could easily have been very important info in there that's hard to access. Computers will do much better at that than humans, whereas humans are better able to present cases in court.

I think you misunderstand how much law from the 18th centuary is actually still current - well lots of it, but most of it has been updated and reinterpreted. I'm not arguing that a good Optical Character Recognition software isn't a good thing or that legal databases aren't an amazing contribution to modern law, I'm just wondering how an AI decides the 'trolley car' experiment.

Samuel T. Cogley

Victor wrote: »

So, what happens when Watson shares your case with a competitor? Or your client's competitor?

Watson sues itself and watson gets to be the judge :pac:

Not_A_Racist

AI cannot solve impossible problems, like philosophical problems like the trolley car problem. They are moral problems not legal problems. They cannot be solved.

Is it moral to kill one person to save five?
There is no single straightforward solution to that problem. AI therefore cannot provide a definitive solution.

Is abortion morally acceptable?
Is 16 years the perfect age for sexual maturity?
Is Chinas one child policy moral or not?
Is Chinas one child policy better than our policy of endless growth?

Those questions don't have perfect answers either.


We see artifical intelligence in fiction, like Star Trek. I presume those people here doubting AI would say that those robots are impossible and they couldn't exist.

If you do say that you are arguing that humans use magic to solve problems, and that computers don't have access to magic.
If humans don't use magic to solve problems then computers can use the same methods.


edit: We could also use AI judges. That would ensure consistency across courts. The single AI judge could also hear thousands of cases at the same time.

Samuel T. Cogley

You can't separate moral and legal problems. They are absolutely not the same thing, but they are inexorably linked.

Not_A_Racist

I agree that moral and legal problems are mixed.

The computer will be able to pass philosophical exams, or history exams, or foundations of legal theory exams and perform better than humans at all of them.

The AI will write legal opinions and it'll present more reasons and rationales for its decisions than humans ever could. A computer could have an awareness of every case in history and have an understanding of every legal opinion and judgement recorded.

Humans have little capacity to improve our performance whereas computers will get faster and faster with better AI. Winter is certainly coming for human intelligence.


I understand I'm making huge claims for AI but I think it's realistic.
A computer is obviously far better at searching information, and at remembering information than a human. All that's left is understanding natural language.



IBMs Watson not only beat the worlds best human at Jeopardy, it destroyed the human. Jeopardy requires huge amounts of real world knowledge and an understanding of natural language.

AI will continue to improve.

Samuel T. Cogley

You said it couldn't do philosophy now it's passing exams - I'm not sure what your argument is if I'm honest. Also given the learn by wrote nature of many education systems including the Irish one, it's not hard to pass an exam. The standard you're setting it is to come up with a more compelling theory than say Rawl's original position or Nozick's theory. How does it do that as both libertarian theories are completely valid - but completely at odds with one another. I realise it's an unfair question as how does anyone do that but I don't even see a direction AI could go to do that.

How is it going to grapple with the question of whether to do the right thing to the majority or the right thing for the individual? As has been said already these are ongoing arguments that change with the case at hand or the societal backdrop.

Grolschevik

Samuel T. Cogley wrote:

Rawl's original position or Nozick's theory. How does it do that as both libertarian theories

[cough] Rawls not a libertarian! [cough]

But I guess the basic point is the doubt that AI can actually do original, critical, creative and intuitive thinking and analysis, rather than just sort and connect data and facts.

Maybe in the future, but that's science fiction territory, even with current exponential technological developments.

Samuel T. Cogley

Grolschevik wrote: »

[cough] Rawls not a libertarian! [cough]

While he's difficult to categorise, one of his guiding principles is the redistribution of wealth only where it is necessary to assist the least well off in society and he is influenced by Kant - If not a libertarian then what?

Grolschevik

Samuel T. Cogley wrote:

While he's difficult to categorise, one of his guiding principles is the redistribution of wealth only where it is necessary to assist the least well off in society and he is influenced by Kant - If not a libertarian then what?

Progressive/left liberal. His maximin theory is actually quite radical in terms of redistribution.

Any redistribution of wealth except voluntarily is anathema to libertarians like Nozick.

Edit: Also, re

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

one of his guiding principles is the redistribution of wealth only where it is necessary to assist the least well off in society

he comes at it from the opposite direction: inequalities should only be permitted if they serve to maximise the welfare of the least well off. And "welfare" does not just include wealth. He also speaks of participation, political power, status, and the material bases of social respect. So, quite radical.

Mr. Incognito

AI has not been invented.

Come back when it has.

Your contentions are grounded in fiction.

Not_A_Racist

A simple thermostat is an example of AI.

Not_A_Racist

An example of artifical complexity in the legal system appears to me to be the failure of the Dail to produce consolidated legislation.

Instead we have original legislation and a series of amendments. The amendments remove sections and add other sections, and add and remove bits of text from betwixt and between other pieces of text.

I believe consolidated versions of the various acts exist but they are informal.

Instead of that system, the Dail could replace existing legislation with new legislation, a consolidated version if you like. The new legislation would be official, and the old legislation would be superceded.

People could then informally produce a series of amendments if they felt it was useful.



It would certainly be easier for the general public if acts were offically consolidated, instead of having a series of amendments.

Mr. Incognito

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

A simple thermostat is an example of AI.

No it is not.

A Thermostat is mercury encased in glass which expands depending on the temperature.

A digital thermostat uses metal as breakers.

These are chemical reactions and have nothing to do with computing.

Computers work, in fundamential form on binary computations. Software is a sophisticated form of this. You can programme software to do certain things but it is like an equation. If X happens Y happens. Computers to not have the ability to interpret and make a decision. They simply follow pre-ordained programmed paths. Law is not binary. When computers have the ability to make an instinctive jump from a non programmed preordained path then we will have AI. It is a long way off. One can raise an argument to say that we are merely programmed machines which also follow similar preordained paths but this is a philisophical question and cannot be proved conculsively yet.

You seem to have a very poor misunderstanding of basic chemistry and computers. You obviously dont and could not be expected to have any knowledge of the law.

How you can take a skewered understanding of the former and apply it to a nil understanding of the latter to make assumptions is quite the reach.

In fact it's a perfect example of the thought process computers are incapable of so in a round about way you have disproved your own assumptions.

Mr. Incognito

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

An example of artifical complexity in the legal system appears to me to be the failure of the Dail to produce consolidated legislation.

Instead we have original legislation and a series of amendments. The amendments remove sections and add other sections, and add and remove bits of text from betwixt and between other pieces of text.

I believe consolidated versions of the various acts exist but they are informal.

Instead of that system, the Dail could replace existing legislation with new legislation, a consolidated version if you like. The new legislation would be official, and the old legislation would be superceded.

People could then informally produce a series of amendments if they felt it was useful.



It would certainly be easier for the general public if acts were offically consolidated, instead of having a series of amendments.

This already happens. The Land and Conveyancing Reform Act for example.

Look, with due respect you dont know what you are talking about here.

Not_A_Racist

I don't claim to have a lot of knowledge about the legal system in Ireland but I do know the scientific side of things.

That Reform act appears to be an explicit attempt to consolidate what was previously probably a large number of complicated old acts with amendments. If so, it's a laudable goal.

I suppose there's a legal reason why we have acts and amendments rather than acts and replacement acts and I'm excited that one day I may know what that reason is.



A thermostat is considered an example of AI. It performs an intelligent act. I understand how it works but that doesn't change what it does.


The universe is deterministic but there are hierarchies of cause and effect.
The upper layers, like the human mind or a computer, are the result of the existence and actions of the lower layers, and the lower layers are entirely deterministic, however, the upper layers control the lower layers by providing context and direction for the lower layers. By controlling the lower layers the upper layers do whatever they want.


An example of an upper layer is the human mind, and a lower layer is the physical human brain.
Another example of an upper layer is computer software while it's running, and a lower layer is the physical computer processor. The processor may have only 50 operations it can perform. The upper layers provide the context and meaning for those small number of operations and the sequence they occur in.


Upper layers, be they either computer software or human minds, are capable of original thought and of free will, even if the upper layers are the result of the existence and the actions of the lower layers, and the lower layers are deterministic.

Therefore, both humans and computers can make decisions.

The alternative is that humans are magical, or that humans can't make decisions if computers can't.


Now, in relation to the thermostat.
It is the upper layer of the human mind that provides the context and the meaning for the intelligent act that the thermostat performs. The thermostat has no understanding of the intelligent act and it's certainly not self aware but the thermostat does perform an intelligent act, by reasoning about the temperature and by controlling the appliance.
The upper layers of the human mind provide the direction and the context to allow the lower layers of the thermostat and its deterministic physicality to act intelligently. Computer software does the same, by controlling the processor.


AI is coming for your job!

Samuel T. Cogley

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

AI is coming for your job!

Thank fcuk I wasn't going to trust the self-driving car to get me there anyway.

Mr. Incognito

So in other words.

Nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense.

AI will replace lawyers.

Sure. Why not. Congratulations. You win at internet. Go to the man in the existential window to collect your $200.

The_Minister

Back on topic - I've begun using dictation software and find it very useful.

Not perfect, but useful.

I dictate into a recorder, plug it into a computer, then go get a coffee while it transcribes.

Great for things like Opinions where you are knee deep in paper and need to repeat a lot of what has been said.

Pat Mustard

Mod note:

I see that we have moved back on topic with the discussion. We might try to keep it that way, please.

If people want to have a philosophical discussion about computers replacing human professionals, then there are appropriate places to hold such discussions.

nuac

About Artificial Intelligence and the Law -

I recall attending a very interesting week-long conference on Law and Computers in Sussex University about 1982. It was attended by about 400 lawyers and legal academics from most of the English speaking world - mainly from what used to be the colonies.

Many good lectures, demos from suppliers. Strawberries, icecream and champagne was standard fare at their receptions

The elder of the current Susskinds was very prominent, and indeed very approachable. Had at least one book out at time

There was much talk of AI. Some views expressed that by 2000 AI would have taken over, and by then offices would be paperless. I recall suggesting at one session that AI was a long way from coping with a title action in West of Ireland - it still is.

And as for the paperless craic - computerisation has spawn those prolix leases and mammoth discoveries

There were only about 20 Irish lawyers there. We took great glee in claiming that George Boole from Cork started it all.

The kit on offer were an IBM machine or a Digital (?) Pdp 11.

Have tried digital dictation over the years. Usually took too much trouble removing the howlers from text. A colleague who was also using it once accused me of "some antics" instead of "semantics."

hullaballoo

AI is nothing but advertising puff and we are a long way from the robot uprising if such a thing is even possible.

It's little more than a plot for a sci-fi, like time travel and warp speed 10.

Not_A_Racist

People here are acting as if humans have never made an error.

I used Nokia voice recognition many years ago,, It was very poor. Nowadays Siri from Apple and Google Now from some other company are both excellent. Google is so good I stopped using it after one day when I realised that Google could now impersonate every person who uses their service.

Google knows so much about some people that they could ring you on the phone and impersonate you. That's a potential downside of using voice recognition software but the upsides are very great for some people.

The_Minister

nuac wrote: »

Have tried digital dictation over the years. Usually took too much trouble removing the howlers from text. A colleague who was also using it once accused me of "some antics" instead of "semantics."

Massive improvements over the years - correction is necessary but you can really save time on a giant wall of text.

Grolschevik

Save billable time?! One fingered tapping on an old typewriter with carbon paper FTW! :-)

Victor

Grolschevik wrote: »

Save billable time?! One fingered tapping on an old typewriter with carbon paper FTW! :-)

I detect sarcasm.

Those who bill generous amounts of time to clients tend to find their clients looking for fixed fees.

Grolschevik

On a related note, can anyone explain why it is generally deemed to be a better use of personal time and/or firm resources to dictate for, say, an hour and a half and then have a secretary spend the guts of half a day typing it out... Rather than just typing it yourself in the first place?

With practice, I imagine there's not much difference between a good typing speed and a normal dictation speed (where you'll need to insert punctuation directions, formatting instructions, and spelling clarifications as well as the basic text).

Edit: I've a friend who came to the solicitors' profession after a successful career in the private and nonprofit sector. He was regarded as something of a marvel wunderkind among his new colleagues because he did his own typing. It has since been socialised out of him, on the basis that it's not a good use of billable hours when there are already secretaries employed...

Not_A_Racist

As you say, it's certainly more efficient to do your own typing.

I'd say the reason is a combination of,
Solicitors are above doing their own typing. Typing is a womens job.
Solicitors are paid more per hour than a typist. Therefore, it might not be inefficient if a typist takes three hours to type a report if the solicitor would have taken two hours.
Solicitors could also wear rags and operate out of cow sheds in order to offer reduced prices. I suspect they don't do this as they want to uphold a certain standard.
Solicitors have a sense of entitlement. This may appear disparaging but it's not. Everyone has a sense of entitlement I'd suspect. As a professional, solicitors often expect to be respected, like priests, policemen and other professionals would have been in the past. Respect is often no longer given and it often isn't deserved. Solicitors are above doing their own typing. There are developers in Ireland who brag about not being able to read or write.

edit: I get your point that the solicitor spends as much time dictating as he would have spent typing if he had typed it himself.
If that is the case then the only answer is that solicitors are unwilling to learn how to type even if if would allow them to be more efficient and therefore cheaper. Perhaps a competator can learn to type and undercut them!

missyb01

I'm working in a solicitors 12 years and only the trainee solicitors type their own work, as soon as they qualified they got a secretary. Also the partners here are in their 50s and 60s and if they ever have to type, they only use their index finger & it takes them forever whereas as the secretaries are 70 words plus per minute. The solicitors rely very heavily on precedents and wouldn't not have total recall of them. Therefore as I said in my previous post, our dictation files consist of a lot of "section 68 paragraph there" , "send the usual letter to the defendants". I think when it comes down to it, the secretaries are much quicker than the solicitors at typing.

Pat Mustard

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

Solicitors are above doing their own typing. Typing is a womens job.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

Solicitors are above doing their own typing. There are developers in Ireland who brag about not being able to read or write.

Not_A_Racist wrote: »

solicitors are unwilling to learn how to type even if if would allow them to be more efficient and therefore cheaper. Perhaps a competator can learn to type and undercut them!

Typing may be a good use of time for the purposes of drafting pleadings in court documents and also deeds and documents. Typing may also be a good use of time for certain emails.

Typing is a waste of time for preparing standard documents and carrying out routine tasks, of which there are many.

If a manager in any area has a high volume of output, it is not an efficient use of time to carry out routine tasks that could otherwise be managed by a secretary. It's alright for people who are not busy to do these things but busy managers need to delegate. Solicitors often tend to manage other employees so this would apply to many solicitors.