The following outlines some of the challenges faced by firms and how Lawscript can positively affect the issues.

Managing administration costs

When managing all word processing services internally, adjusting the labour resource to suit the requirements of the business is challenging and often unmanageable. By working with Lawscript, services are charged on an as used basis thereby allowing you the flexibility to instantly increase and decrease your remote workforce as required, without creating any internal HR or employee relations issues.

Consistent quality and performance

In most organisations temporary staff are engaged to cover holidays or sickness. As well as being an expensive option, quality and consistency is a challenge especially in the advent of more sophisticated practice management and document management systems. In some instances, rather than use temps, fee earners are inclined to allow back logs to develop waiting for staff to return. This can create ill will amongst the returning staff and poor client service due to unnecessary delays. Lawscript can provide assistance for holiday and ad hoc sickness cover thereby ensuring costs are known and managed, and quality standards and efficiency are maintained.

Balancing utilisation with demand

Varying levels of workload between departments as well as at different times in the month and year often leads to over staffing with staff resources determined by the busy periods and maximum fee earner levels. When fee earners are on holiday or work levels are lower the word processing staff are under utilised thereby increasing the ‘transactional’ cost of the service. To optimise cost efficiency the word processing staff levels should be structured to support the quietest times thereby ensuring that the resource is fully utilised. Peaks in workload can be supported by Lawscript. Lawscript services are charged per minute of dictation thereby ensuring that costs are managed, control is maintained and resource is not 'wasted'.

Spiralling cost of staff benefits

As the labour market becomes increasingly competitive the cost of staff benefits also increases. Many firms have already experienced increases in costs of staff benefits and whilst their improved packages have been designed to attract and retain fee earning staff, in many instances they have included all employees. By engaging Lawscript to support transcription services the costs are controlled and known in advance. The burden of managing employment, compensation, benefits and other staff costs is removed and the cost of the service is known and controlled.

Maximising office space

As the market becomes increasingly competitive the efficient utilisation of office space becomes an increasing challenge for many firms. Where space is a premium or improving the bottom line of the firm is a key objective, maximising the number of fee earners within the space available is critical. Lawscript helps increase fee earner numbers by allowing the reallocation of desks, formerly used by secretaries, to fee earners. As secretaries leave through natural wastage the PA and client facing duties would migrate to other secretaries and the surplus word processing would be supported by Lawscript. By replacing one secretary with a fee earner an immediate and significant positive impact can be made to the bottom line.