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Empowering the firm

for efficient remote working

The facts

The customer
Ison Harrison Solicitors, Leeds, United Kingdom
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Philips partner
VoicePower
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Ison Harrison Solicitors are a regional law firm with a national reputation. Over the past 40 years the firm has grown from a single solicitor to what is now a business employing over 200 staff across 15 offices throughout Yorkshire.


Most of their expansion is the result of organic growth through recurring clients or customers recommending their services to others. Ison Harrison offer the broadest suite of legal services in the Northern England region and are very much embedded in the communities in which they operate in.

With a team of 70 dictation users, Ison Harrison implemented SpeechLive to empower their staff with a document production tool that supported staff working remotely. SpeechLive manages the firm’s dictation and transcription work through a cloud platform, allowing solicitors and admin staff to efficiently collaborate from wherever they happen to be. 

Improving collaboration during lockdowns

Prior to implementing SpeechLive, there was a software-based document creation in place. This setup, however, didn’t deliver a flexible working environment where the lawyers, secretaries and admin team could work from home during the lockdowns in England. With the old dictation software, the firm was encountering difficulties with the coordination of dictations and transcriptions between the solicitors and admin staff. “It became an issue because dictation authors had to come to the office to dock their recording devices and submit work; and the same happened to the transcribers”, explains Adrian Barker, the firm’s IT Manager. “The previous setup was very clunky, involving the emailing of dictations, ensuring that traces of the dictation were removed from sent items, delete items, recycle bins on the users’ remote machines, which introduced large processing delays and limitations on who could use the service.”

Better flexibility and functionality  

Ison Harrison turned to Philips Certified Partner VoicePower to find a solution that enabled their staff to produce documentation with security, efficiency, and accuracy, regardless of the users’ location. “It had to accommodate users working from home, with the ability to logon remotely for extended periods of time, in some cases, permanently; it had to allow for people using their own hardware such as Macs; and it had to be able to be setup quickly.”

VoicePower recommended Philips SpeechLive, as the management of the dictations and transcriptions workflow is web-based and does not require any software installation. SpeechLive gives a centralized view of all work tasks via an online portal which can be accessed via desktop, tablet, or smartphone. Lawyers can dictate on a voice recorder or on their smartphones, and their recordings are automatically sent to the support team for transcription. 

Lockdown prompted the change, but the versatility offered by SpeechLive is something we didn’t know we were missing.

Adrian Barker
IT Manager

No additional hardware purchases

As an additional on-demand functionality, both authors and transcriptionists can use SpeechLive’s speech recognition service, where the audio files are automatically converted into text with near-perfect accuracy, saving even more time. All staff members can check the status of work at any time, allowing them to better communicate with their clients, improving customer responsiveness. “After a friendly initial telephone call, a SpeechLive trial was successfully installed with dictations submitted and accessible for transcription only two hours later!”, recalls Adrian.  

An extra benefit for Ison Harrison was the fact that SpeechLive didn’t require any additional hardware purchases. The solicitors carried on using their handheld dictation machines or the SpeechLive voice recorder app on their smartphones, and the admin staff kept on using their existing Philips foot pedals. “Being largely web and app based, and our limited need to integrate workflow processes, all we essentially needed with SpeechLive was a couple of web filter rules and Chrome.”

From desk-bound software to smartphone dictation

All Ison Harrison’s dictation users are now using SpeechLive, with the previous desk-bound software solution completely retired. The need to email recordings, which posed an issue for data protection, has been removed. Most authors are using the smartphone app, allowing them to work from wherever they happen to be, plus a handful of users who have opted for a handheld device. Like the authors, transcription staff can work remotely from any location. 

As for which functionalities of SpeechLive have led to the most positive feedback from staff, Adrian points out: “for authors it’s the mobile app, which means not having to carry another device – or manage it and keeping it charged. The app also offers a level of security not found on handheld devices. For the transcribers it’s the ability to work from home. They are able to use the same transcription hardware that they always have and are confident that the dictations are appearing as they would if they were physically in the office.” 

Data security and compliance

Ison Harrison is now benefiting from an effective cloud dictation solution that supports remote working and best-in-class virtual collaboration. SpeechLive is GDPR compliant, as all data stored in its platform is encrypted, backed up, secure and available to the firm’s staff at all times. Philips Partner VoicePower provided great support to Ison Harrison with a fast setup and usage advice. “Lockdown prompted the change, but the versatility offered by SpeechLive is something we didn’t know we were missing. In fact, I can easily see that the base SpeechLive has is something which indicates the end of desktop-based solutions.”

More than four million users worldwide work with Philips speech-to-text products. Philips dictation and transcription workflows, speech recognition solutions, Cloud dictation, voice recorder apps, and intelligent dictation devices turn your voice into text.

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“The evolution to SpeechLive has been extremely smooth, and accomplished with very minimal training.“

Gale Kicinski, Records Administrative Supervisor, Port Huron Police Department

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“That’s the way the future is. It’s all heading towards cloud based, to having everything integrated into your smart phone. With SpeechLive, it just made sense to just get on board with where technology is taking us towards.“

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“Philips SpeechLive has positively impacted our business by making us much more efficient and giving our users the ability to work from any location.“

Steve Felden, Chief Technology Officer, Reminger Co., LPA, Cleveland

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