For lawyers or other business owners who are considering taking advantage of the benefits of transcription, there are a number of options available. Most valuable, in my opinion, is a digital dictation device. An individual can buy a digital recorder (available at pretty much any office or computer store), or use an application.

When purchasing a digital recorder, consider the following:

• ease of upload of digital audio files
• battery capacity
• ability to organize files on the recorder
• available recording time

When considering an application, such as Express Dictate, realize the differences inherent in using software versus a more traditional recorder. A bonus is that you won’t have to figure out uploading the files from your recorder onto your computer, but a negative is that you can lose portability.

Of course digital is not the only option. While in an article I recently read, Nicole Black noted that many lawyers “despise” the older methods of transcription, I actually have clients who prefer tape transcription and simply aren’t ready to embrace digital technology! I have a minicassette transcriber just for that reason and if needed may purchase a microcassette transcriber also. For me, it’s not just about my preference, but making sure the client is able to work in a familiar and comfortable way.

I know that another option offered by some virtual legal assistants is telephone dictation. This method is very easy to use for the client, as they simply call in to a toll free number and record their instructions.

Regardless of the transcription method chosen, dictation is still a very useful tool for a lawyer to have in their arsenal. It is quick and allows for easy delegation of a variety of tasks.

A lot of research led me to believe that my best choice would be a backup and syncing setup, as I have two computers and wanted access to files on both computers from anywhere, plus I wanted to protect my data in case of computer failure or natural disaster.

Now, I’m sure if I do experience a computer failure or my house is struck by natural disaster I’m going to appreciate my system, but even if such things should never happen (fingers crossed!) I’ve gotten a great deal of use out of my system. I’ve traveled with only one computer and needed to access files on my other computer so that I could quickly assist one of my lawyers and easily been able to do so.  I’ve been out running errands and quickly looked up a file from my mobile phone’s web browser, as my chosen application offers mobile access. It’s really reassuring to have this setup, especially when it comes to my business data.

And now I’ve actually realized another way such a system can be utilized. I have clients who are not particularly comfortable with LogMeIn or similar setups. There are benefits to such systems obviously, but especially to clients new to virtual partnerships, they may be hard to accept at first. I can tell my clients about my setup though and they can choose to share documents via a similar application (at least I know with my provider this is possible!) I had a situation recently where I needed a document from a client and if said client had been able to access his files from his phone’s browser he could have quickly emailed them  to me. Instead, we had to wait to finish a project until he was in his office to access the files.

So, can you access your documents from anywhere so easily? If so, what service do you use? I use SugarSync and totally recommend them, for what it’s worth (not a paid endorsement by the way, just true love of the product!) They offer fair pricing, SSL encryption which is very important especially when dealing with legal file materials, and work with both PCs and Macs. Similar SaaS backup/sync programs are compared here if you are interested!