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Dragon in the Legal Profession

Posted

CASE STUDY

Bromberg & Sunstein use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to Speed up Workflow & Save Tens of Thousands of Dollars

Voice Recognition Application Simultaneously Increases Productivity, Reduces Costs and Protects Firm’s Employees from Repetitive Stress Injuries

CHALLENGE

Protect Legal Professionals from debilitating repetitive stress injuries cased by typing and using a mouse, while not reducing workflow.

STRATEGY

Deploy Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal voice recognition software to reduce keyboard and mouse use while improving workflow and ultimately increasing productivity.

RESULTS

Significant reduction in symptoms from RSIs and pro-active solution to prevent further injuries. Savings of tens of thousands of dollars and improved productivity.

When you work as an attorney to protect intellectual property rights, every minute of every day really counts. Researching case history, technology advances, responding to email, creating motions and working on e-discovery tasks keep these legal professionals tied to a computer all day. The constant keyboarding, clicking, and maneuvering the mouse can strain and damage muscles and tendons in the fingers, hands, wrists, and arms. The widespread use of computers in the workplace has contributed to the ubiquity of repetitive stress injuries, (RSI). Intensive computer use accounts for a significant number of RSIs each year, and occupational computer use is growing according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“I estimate that, by using, DNS, my firm has saved tens of thousands of dollars, protected our employees against RSIs and has substantially increased our individual productivity.”

-Robert Kaan, Managing Partner

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), including repetitive stress injuries, are one of the largest and most costly single job-related injuries. According to OSHA 1.8 million U.S. workers experience work-related musculoskeletal disorders annually. RSIs, which are often incurred by employees working at computers, are the most common of the MSDs. RSIs can affect muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, and joints. People who suffer from RSI may experience pain in wrists and forearms, swollen hands, should stiffness, or finger numbness. Workers with severe MSDs often face permanent disability that prevents them from returning to their jobs. The good news is that speech recognition software can enable many people with MSDs to regain the ability to a computer and resume their daily workout activities, many times more productively than typing by hand!

Bromberg & Sunstein provides legal representation with a focus on IP, including patent, litigation, and prosecution. Trademark and copyright portfolio development and business transactions are likewise areas of expertise. Their client roster encompasses a range of industries, including financial services, pharmaceutical, computer, semiconductor, electronics and consumer products. Their ability to combine technical expertise with legal skills has helped the firm achieve outstanding results and national recognition in the legal community.

William J. Morris works as an attorney at Bromberg & Sunstein LLP and knows how constant typing can lead to debilitating repetitive stress injuries. Even though he was an expert typist, he couldn’t escape one of the main drawbacks of using a computer. “I was suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome and needed something to reduce my need to type. I considered using a traditional voice activated dictation machine and having my secretary transcribe the dictation, but that route was too slow and costly.” On average, it costs over $25,000 to replace a legal professional that is has some type of hand or arm injury and is unable to type on the job. Not only is it costly to place a temporary employee at the workstation, but these employees take longer to complete routine tasks due to the firm’s operations learning curve.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking helps legal professionals that use a computer, from attorneys, to secretaries and paralegals, complete work three to four times faster than typing by hand – all while saving wear and tear on joints, muscles and tendons. According to Morris, “I have used Dragon NaturallySpeaking every day since September for most of my computing tasks. I even use it to simply accomplish the “clicking” portion of my internet searches. I move the mouse to where I want to click and then say “mouse click” to avoid having to click the mouse. I’d say the software’s accuracy is pretty good. I expected it to be much lower and with a prohibitive learning curve. In practice, however, I found the software easy and fun to use.

I have been pleasantly surprised with the product and now my arms feel better at the end of the day!” Not only is Dragon NaturallySpeaking a great RSI prevention tool, but using has it also dramatically increases productivity for even fast typists! Adds Morris, “Even though I use the software for RSI prevention, there are several people at the firm that use Dragon NaturallySpeaking as a productivity tool, including managing partner Bob Kann and even one of the firm’s founders, Bruce Sunstein.

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