Legal documentation forms the foundation that keeps the scales of justice balanced and fair. However, creating all those documents can be extremely daunting. It’s time-consuming; before you know it, an ocean of legal work is already waiting for you. Legal transcription has revolutionized legal documentation by providing much-needed efficiency at affordable rates.
It’s also worth noting that accuracy is everything, as one tiny mistake can derail the whole legal operation. Fortunately, legal transcription services provide a reliable way to ensure every document is on the spot.
So, how can legal transcriptions specifically help law firms and legal professionals? What measures do transcription service companies take to ensure the security of sensitive legal data?
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- AI transcription is a terrible choice for legal documentation as it’s inaccurate.
- Accurate legal documentation is crucial, as even small errors can lead to serious consequences, such as misinterpretations or wrong decisions in court cases.
- Secure transcription services like those provided by Ditto, ensure sensitive legal data is protected by following strict protocols.
Why is Accurate Legal Documentation So Important?
Even the tiniest mistake in legal documentation can snowball into a massive headache. Legal professionals often count on these documents, including transcripts, to build rock-solid cases or bring evidence to light in court.
So, when transcripts contain even the smallest error, it can lead to misunderstandings or decisions that miss the mark. It sabotages the efforts and the whole legal process.
Take Cody DeShields’s case, for example. It’s an eye-opener about how much damage transcription errors can cause.
When it came time for sentencing, someone accidentally wrote “36 months” instead of “36 years,” guess what? A convicted criminal walked free way too soon and went on to commit another violent crime. It’s a horrific reminder of why legal documents must be handled with extreme attention to detail.
Types of Documentation in the Legal Industry
Legal documentation is crucial in the field. Here are some common use cases for transcription:
| Documentation | Description |
| Court Hearings and Trials | Records of legal proceedings, including testimony, evidence, and rulings, in a court of law. |
| Depositions | Sworn testimony taken before a trial, typically used to gather information or preserve testimony. |
| Arbitration and Mediation | Records of alternative dispute resolution processes, where parties attempt to resolve their disputes outside of court. |
| Legal Briefs and Contracts | Written documents that outline legal arguments, positions, or agreements between parties. |
How Legal Transcription Improved Documentation
Transcribing legal recordings transformed the approach to legal documentation in many ways. Below are some of the most common.
Pinpointing Speakers Identification
Legal transcription has come a long way, and one of the standout improvements is the ability to pinpoint who said what and when—otherwise known as speaker identification. It’s useful for legal professionals as it lets them quickly zero in on specific moments in complicated discussions.
There’s no need for legal professionals to go through a jumble of words anymore. Speaker identification makes transcripts so much easier to follow and extract every single drop of crucial details. Plus, it’s handy for creating timelines that accurately reconstruct events or catch any statement inconsistencies.
Expediting Documentation with Efficient Legal Transcription
Transcripts have completely changed the way legal professionals approach documentation.
Transcripts give lawyers and the whole legal team the tool to effectively capture important details with undisputed accuracy—though depending on the transcription company—leaving manual typing in the dust.
Adapting transcription techniques lets legal teams optimize their time and resources by prioritizing substantive legal work over administrative tasks.
Transcription Ensures Meticulous Accuracy
Specialized transcription equipment, like professional-grade headsets or video syncing software, has significantly reduced errors and inconsistencies in legal records.
Legal transcriptionists should be perfectionists—it’s required for their job. As part of their duty, they ensure every word, pause, and change in tone is captured faithfully, resulting in significantly less room for misinterpretation or ambiguity.
In addition, accurate transcripts are crucial in courts, as they let judges, attorneys, and juries review what happened with razor-sharp precision. Plus, the required accuracy in legal documentation, especially in appellate reviews, makes managing cases much easier—it’s a win for everyone involved.
Cost-Effective Transcription for Legal Documentation
Skilled human transcriptionists can efficiently produce accurate, polished transcripts that don’t require many revisions. This saves legal professionals time, and the cost savings of human transcription go beyond the initial investment.
High-quality transcripts reduce the risk of costly errors that could lead to legal disputes. Plus, human transcriptionists can handle various audio qualities, accents, or specialized legal lingo without sweat.
Transcripts Enhance Accessibility of Legal Records
Once legal documents like court proceedings and depositions are transcribed, they can be easily distributed among legal teams or anyone else who needs them.
Therefore, having written transcripts means people don’t have to rely solely on audio or video recordings, which can be a pain to understand due to technical limitations or hearing impairments for some people.
Legal transcriptions also make it much easier to search for specific keywords, which means users can quickly pinpoint the information they need within lengthy legal documents.
Moreover, transcribed documents can be easily translated into different languages—further expanding their accessibility to more people.
Safeguarding Sensitive Data with Secure Transcription
Legal professionals often deal with sensitive information that needs to be kept concealed, like personal details, financial records, confidential attorney-client conversations, and more.
Trusting the transcription process to secure transcription services, like Ditto Transcripts, ensures that this sensitive data stays safe throughout the documentation process.
Transcriptionists specializing in legal work are trained to handle confidential information with extreme care and discretion. Plus, reputable services, like us here at Ditto, can provide non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality clauses to give clients peace of mind.
Should You Settle With AI Transcription Legal Documentation?
Accuracy is important in legal transcription, and I believe I’ve made that point in the last thousand words. Sadly, accuracy—or lack thereof— is also the main reason AI is unsuitable for legal transcription.
You see, automated transcription programs have only reached 86% accuracy. That might be negligible when recording personal notes or a quick dictation on what you want to do after work hours.
However, when you put it into the context of a ten-thousand-word legal memorandum, you’re 86% means a staggering 1,400 errors.
That’s… quite a problem. Consider Cody DeShields’ case in the initial sections: the transcription error was practically less than 1% (“months” instead of “years”), and yet the kid managed to stave off jail time and commit another heinous crime while he was out.
Inaccurate transcription has heavy implications, and AI is not accurate. It won’t take a lawyer to arrive at the most relevant conclusion.
How To Choose The Right Legal Transcription Service For Your Needs
If you need a legal transcription service, Ditto Transcripts offers the best service in the industry. Signing up for our services gives you several major advantages, including:
Accuracy
Legal transcription inaccuracies can have heavy and far-reaching repercussions. Court transcripts, especially verbatim ones, are frequently used in hearings and other legal proceedings. This means that errors could lead to misinterpretations and have the potential to significantly—and negatively—impact an ongoing court case.
Some companies may offer low prices that reflect their lack of experience, and legal professionals can sometimes unknowingly fall for this trap. Transcripts from such providers are inaccurate and low-quality, as they’re not well-versed in legalese and jargon. Dealing with low-quality legal transcription companies will cost you more time, money, and effort.
Never settle for the cheapest, fastest transcriber with the lowest accuracy rates. Choose Ditto; we can produce high-quality court transcripts every time, with 99% guaranteed accuracy rates. Any transcript you receive from us is guaranteed to be ready for use in court or legal research.
100% Human Transcription
According to studies, typical accuracy guarantees for artificial intelligence or speech recognition solutions reach up to 86%.
Meanwhile, 100% human transcription services like Ditto are more than 99% accurate. That means human-completed court transcripts won’t have too many glaring errors, if at all. Verbatim transcription, even with complex legal jargon, is cleanly done. You can reliably use them for any court case with confidence that everything is accurate.
Affordability
Lawyers and legal professionals understand that quality transcription might come with a hefty price, but that price tag shouldn’t say “arm and leg.”
Reliable transcription companies meet their clients’ transcription needs quickly and accurately without charging exorbitant prices. Here at Ditto, we provide the costs upfront and are willing to contact clients if the current pricing models don’t match the required work. Additionally, we allow clients pay-as-you-go options without committing to long-term contracts.
Ditto’s pricing is $1.50 per audio minute for our most economical tier. We also offer typical turnaround times and faster options for rush jobs.
Confidentiality and Security Measures
Ditto’s legal transcription service has rigorous security protocols to ensure that every byte of data we receive and transmit is kept safe and confidential.
Our security measures include:
- Detailed Reporting and Tracking Features
- Individually Defined User Access Levels
- Individual User Names, Passwords, and PINs (immediate deactivation upon request)
- Scaled Network Redundancy
- Virtual Private Network (VPN) Integration
- Dedicated Data Centers
- Encrypting All Data With SSL 256-bit Encryption
- Criminal Background Checks
Corporate legal departments, law firms, and other institutions in the legal sector handle criminal cases, so it’s better to choose a CJIS-compliant legal transcription services company like ours.
CJIS compliance is a sign of a reputable and secure transcription company; not every official transcription provider can attain compliance with the Criminal Justice Information Services, as the division requires passing security guidelines above and beyond typical security requirements.
Ability To Certify Transcripts
Legal transcriptions from depositions, custody hearings, court orders, conference calls, client meetings, witness testimony, even interrogations, and other law enforcement transcription documents are popular in legal proceedings. Furthermore, transcripts are admissible in court and are often submitted as evidence.
However, transcriptions submitted to the court require proper certification—meaning your transcriptionist must be able to certify their transcripts.
Transcript certification has strict requirements, including the transcriber’s capacity to appear in open court and testify under oath, as court reporters do. Offshore and automated transcription services, therefore, cannot certify transcripts. We, however, can certify any legal transcript upon request.
Quality Customer Service
With Ditto, you don’t have to worry about your transcribers ghosting you when you need them most. It doesn’t matter if you’re a current or prospective client; call us within normal business hours, and we’ll happily address any of your questions.
Let Us Help You Transcribe Legal Recordings
Don’t settle for cheap, inaccurate services or pay through the nose for expensive ones. Remember, a reputable transcription company with over a decade of legal experience, like Ditto Transcripts, will never compromise on the quality of any of your legal transcripts.
Contact Ditto for reliable, accurate, and affordable legal and verbatim court proceeding transcription. You can request a sample transcription to assess the quality of our service at any time.
Ditto Transcripts is a HIPAA-compliant and CJIS-compliant Denver, Colorado-based transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial.
