Legal Transcription And Why It Matters

When it comes to the legal side, written transcription of a conversation holds more ground compared to a verbal conversation. This is why legal transcription is very important. Although an audio recording is also a very significant piece of information and holds major sway in the legal matter, having a transcription on hand would significantly speed up the process and point the parties to wherever they need to focus on.

What is legal transcription?

In order to fully understand its importance, it is important to differentiate what is legal transcription in comparison to the general transcription that is normally used. Legal transcription is known as the process of transcribing any particular type of legal proceedings. This process takes the spoken word (which could also include given audio files) and turns it into a written text document that should be carefully formatted to help you find the information needed.

Imagine having no transcription and a 3-hour audio file. It would take quite a while to find proof that a certain individual said something as it is buried in the conversation. Lawyers along with those who work alongside the legal department typically already have a lot of different tasks on their plates. This is true no matter what particular industry and specialty that they are working on.

With the tasks piled up, doing their own legal transcription could add hours and hours to the whole workload as this could include interviews, court recordings, or even recorded conversations. Legal transcription can be done by outsourcing or hiring an in-house transcriptionist to do the needed transcription and make the workflow more efficient.

How does legal transcription work?

As of today, the general legal transcription industry is rapidly growing. There are services that include all types of transcription depositions, official court hearings, testimonies, interrogations, legal briefs, client letters, and also other general legal correspondence. This is all done from the raw audio recordings which include the physical tapes, the video and digital files, and other forms of recordings. The legal transcription of these files have to result in a perfectly formatted document once finished.

This could be a game-changer for lawyers, especially since they already have quite a large scope of information for them to review and document that seemingly occurs at a number of different points at a time.

How does legal transcription differ from court reporters?

A number of lawyers in the past have actually relied exclusively on court reporters as well as the transcriptions that they provide without being able to realize that there are a number of other options available for them in addition to those, particularly specific services. The use of a professional transcriptionist for legal transcription is starting to catch on.

Traditionally, those court reporters (who are also called stenographers) are considered licensed workers who will be present during the court proceeding and have to create a transcript of what happens during the entire session. This usually happens live as well as in real-time and requires the stenographers to work fast-paced.

Fortunately, those stenographers are still able to type in shorthand, this means that their computers, later on, convert the transcription into full words and sentences even before the stenographer would proofread the entire transcription document before being sent out to the courts and the attorneys.

The legal transcriptionists, however, are different from those court stenographers. Most of them aren’t able to technically certify as a transcript and transcriptionists also do not have the ability to swear in someone. They are used to do the bulk of the work while the office takes care of the legalities.

Transcription tips for legal transcription

The main point of legal transcription is to be able to present a text document of a verbal conversation that took place. This is why using transcription tools could be the best way to come up with a fast text document without having to hire a transcriptionist, however, due to accent, faulty audio, and other factors, the final transcription might come out a bit inaccurately and this is where outsourcing transcriptionists could be useful.

One technique could be for the legal office to do the audio-to-text transcription using transcription tools and outsource a transcriptionist for editing and making sure the text document is accurate. This could save a decent amount of money instead of going directly and hiring a transcriptionist to do the entire work.

However, if the office does not have the manpower to do this or the office is caught up on more important matters, it would be better to hire a transcriptionist to do the work from top to bottom. This way, the office would have no problems in coming out with the transcript document.

Another thing that can be done is to outsource a transcriptionist, provide them with access to the right transcription tools, and make them do the final output. Due to the provision of the transcription tools, the rate of the transcriptionist might be negotiable. This, however, depends entirely on the transcriptionist and their way of doing things.

Normally, transcriptionists already have their own way of doing things but since this is legal transcription, which generally weighs quite heavily compared to some other transcriptions, the terms and process of the transcription might be negotiable. It is also very important to find a reputable transcriptionist.

Although there might be a number of beginner transcriptionists that would be available for a surprisingly low charge, due to the legal transcription holding much importance, it wouldn’t be a good idea to compromise too much in this aspect. For aspiring legal transcribers, using the right transcription tools could not only help them come up with faster results but also a more accurate transcription.

At the end of the day, when it comes to legal transcription and other types of transcriptions, accuracy is more important than speed although the latter is still very important. Interested in doing legal transcription? Use Izitext.io to simplify the transcription process for you.