A couple of American-themed stories now looking at the steady march of the Android platform into the legal IT world…
• Smartphone-based digital dictation more than doubles in 2011
BigHand today announced that the end-user adoption of its smartphone-based digital dictation applications for the Android, iPhone and BlackBerry platforms has more than doubled in 2011, with over 40% of lawyers on BigHand now using it on their smartphone. Recent firms to incorporate the application on their Smartphones include Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog LLP (Raleigh, NC), Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis LLP (Nashville, TN) and McCarter & English LLP (Newark, NJ).
Sam LaRoche, IT Director of Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog said “BigHand has been a tremendous success. The ability to deploy a dictation solution on our lawyers’ Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry Smartphones has saved our firm tens of thousands of dollars. Just as important, the lawyers love being able to dictate right onto their phone from anywhere and at any time, often resulting in a finished product before they even return to the office. When it comes to dictation, being able to deploy BigHand on a smartphone qualifies it as a game changer.”
Dana LaRieal Wilson, Project Manager in the IT Strategic Projects Department at Waller Lansden, said the new ways lawyers are using the BigHand application at the firm are increasing attorney mobile productivity. “BigHand pretty much sold itself once we got it into the hands of lawyers, including younger lawyers who did not traditionally dictate. We let them use it how they felt comfortable and, to the firm’s benefit, they have come up with some new and creative ways of leveraging the application. They use it for submitting time, sending instructions to their assistants, working when they are in traffic and have to be hands-free, as well as recording long depositions that need transcribing at a later date. Instead of voicemail, they use BigHand. Word has spread and we continue to receive requests from users across the firm for the BigHand application.”
Beth Thompson, US Director of Sales for BigHand, said “Initially, the convenience of being able to submit recordings from anywhere on a smartphone without plugging into a PC, and no longer having to carry multiple devices, was a ‘nice to have’. However over the past year BigHand has become a ‘must have’ for many firms due to the tangible cost savings, efficiencies and productivity gains they have realized. We all speak faster than we type and we’re even slower typing on a smartphone! Even ‘non-dictating’ lawyers can attest to the fact that it is more efficient to verbalize tasks, documents, and instructions than thumb their way around a Smartphone. Lawyers can now quickly offload administrative tasks to office-based support staff, such as entering billable time, so that they can focus on servicing client needs and business development.”
• Android joins iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch apps for Black’s Law Dictionary 9th edition
Thomson Reuters is now offering an Android app for its Black’s Law Dictionary – the 9th edition is already available as an app for the Apple iOS (iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch) platform. Commenting on the move, Chris Parton, vice president, Academic, Thomson Reuters, said “The Apple app for Black’s Law Dictionary 9th edition is in the top 10 highest grossing reference apps on iTunes, which means touch-of-the finger legal reference tools are essential. Expanding to the Android platform was a logical step for our mobile plan.”For more information visit the Thomson Reuters Westlaw Store www.store.westlaw.com/mobileapps
