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.
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- AI transcription causes more headaches than it’s worth.
- Inaccuracy in legal documentation, regardless of its size, can lead to severe consequences.
- Secure transcription services, such as those provided by Ditto, ensure sensitive legal data is protected by following strict protocols.
Why Accuracy in Legal Transcription Matters for Court Cases
In legal documentation, even the slightest mistake can cause misery. This is precisely what happened with Cody Deshield’s case, where a single transcription error accidentally wrote “36 months” instead of “36 years,” leaving a convicted criminal to walk far too soon, only to commit another violent crime soon after. It’s a horrific reminder of why legal documents must be handled with extreme attention to detail.
Another example is a medical malpractice case where a transcription error led to a patient’s death. Medico-legal transcription services accurately transcribe patient consultations and needs, filling the gap between medical and legal matters.
Choosing the right transcription service partner is crucial. An example of this is when a particular hospital opted for an infamous transcription service overseas that is known for documentation inaccuracies.
Later, it was found that the death was found to be associated with incorrect transcription of the medication order, resulting in the wrongful administration of a fatal dosage. The victim’s family was compensated $140 million – and the case highlighted the importance of accurate transcription in the medical setting.
Common Legal Documents That Require Transcription
Legal documentation is crucial in the field. Here are some everyday 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, is 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 Enhances Legal Document Workflow
Legal documentation can be conducted in certain ways:
Pinpointing Speakers Identification
Legal transcription revolutionized how general transcription works. In a chaotic setting like a courtroom, it is difficult to identify who said what. But with the aid of a professional transcription, speaker identification is clearly labeled, easier to follow, and recorded every little detail crucial for the case.
Legal transcription enables legal professionals to conserve their time and energy for case preparation rather than spending it on extensive documentation.
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 challenging to understand due to technical limitations or hearing impairments for some individuals.
Legal transcriptions also make it much easier to search for specific keywords, allowing users to pinpoint the information they need within lengthy legal documents quickly.
Particularly, government transcription helps make documents more transparent and accessible to the general public.
Moreover, transcribed documents can be easily translated into various languages—further expanding their reach to a broader audience.
Safeguarding Sensitive Data with Secure Transcription
Legal professionals often handle sensitive information that must be kept confidential, including personal details, financial records, and confidential attorney-client conversations.
Trusting the transcription process to secure transcription services, such as Ditto Transcripts, ensures that sensitive data remains safe throughout the documentation process.
Transcriptionists specializing in legal work are trained to handle confidential information with extreme care and discretion. Additionally, reputable services, such as ours here at Ditto, can offer non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality clauses to provide clients with peace of mind.
Why AI Transcription Falls Short in 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 61.92% 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 61.92% means a staggering 3,800 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 Human Transcription Differs from AI Transcription
Transcription made by humans and AI are two very distinct outputs, particularly in terms of:
| Criteria | Human Transcription | AI Transcription |
| Accuracy | Skill-based and trained professionals. 99% accuracy. | It is highly dependent on the quality of the audio. 61.92% accuracy |
| Contextual and Speaker | Understands trends, emotions, and sarcasm; clearly identifies different speakers | Often, it does not relate to specific concepts, emotions, or sarcasm, and there is difficulty in identifying multiple speakers. |
| Background Noise | Listen and document through the noise | Often skips the part with a noisy background |
| Turnaround Time | As early as 4 hours | Instant |
| Cost | Costly compared to AI Transcription | Lower cost compared to Human Transcription, or sometimes free |
| Confidentiality | CJIS, HIPAA | No known accountability or governing body for compliance |
| Format and Editing | Professionally formatted for legal purposes | Prone to misformatting |
Court transcription requires meticulous attention to detail in terms of documentation and accuracy. Proper labeling and formatting are crucial because they provide a legal basis for proceedings and case preparation, a process critical to case outcomes.
Choosing the Best Legal Transcription Provider: What Law Firms Should Know
If you need a legal transcription service, Ditto Transcripts offers the best service in the industry. Signing up for our services gives you several 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 often inaccurate and of low quality, as they lack expertise 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 61.92%.
Meanwhile, 100% human transcription services, such as Ditto, are more than 99% accurate. That means human-completed court transcripts won’t have too many glaring errors, if at all.
With verbatim transcription, you get every detail mentioned in a recording. This includes not only words but also non-verbal cues, stutters, and even complex legal jargon. 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.
Our legal transcription prices are transparent, allowing customers to estimate the cost directly. We offer rush, standard, and extended pricing according to the needs and timeline of when the transcript is needed. Additionally, we offer clients pay-as-you-go options without requiring 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, interrogations, and other law enforcement documents are commonly used 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.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based, HIPAA, FINRA, & CJIS-compliant 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.