How To Choose A Legal Transcription Company

The right legal transcription company can make a huge difference in your company’s ability to be productive, profitable, and efficient.

When you hire professional legal transcriptionists to manage and perform transcriptions for your meetings, depositions, hearings, and conferences – you can focus on what you do best.

We’ve put together our top advice on why you need a legal transcription company and what you need to consider when choosing a legal transcription company.

It’s important that you do not rush this process, there are a lot of legal transcription companies out there and we want to make sure you choose a legal transcription company that can and will deliver on its promises.

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Know What You Need from A Legal Transcription Company

Before meeting with potential legal transcription companies, it’s important that you know exactly what you need from the company. Make sure you can answer these questions before you start interviewing potential legal transcription companies:

• What types of legal meetings do you need transcribed? Depositions, court hearings, conference meetings, board meetings, or other business meetings?
• What is the volume of meetings or sessions? Is it a one-time legal deposition or an on-going months long set of hearings?
• What type of files do you want?
• Do you require legal transcription of existing files, such as audio or video transcripts? Or do you require only live legal transcription services?
• When do you need the completed and edited transcripts?

Do Your Research On Legal Transcription Companies

Take your time and thoroughly research the legal transcription companies in your community. Just like buying a car, you don’t choose the car based on the color – you need to know what’s under the hood and the reliability of the car manufacturer.

• Read every section of the legal transcription company’s website. Look for keywords such as accuracy, teamwork, editing, file types, and certification.
• Understand how many legal transcriptionists the company employees. You want to make sure that you’re not left scrambling should a legal transcriptionist be sick or not available.
• Talk to other people who have used the potential legal transcription companies. Find out what they liked and disliked about their experiences.
• When you meet with the potential legal transcription companies be ready to ask questions about accuracy, timing, availability, file security and privacy, and the training of the employees.

Understand What Legal Transcription Companies Actually Do

It’s important that your expectations of the legal transcription company and legal transcriptionists are in-line with what the company actually does. High-quality legal transcription companies typically offer the following services:

• Legal transcription of depositions, hearings, meetings, conferences, and other high-level sessions.
• Transcription of a range of sources including audio and video files and in-person live sessions, meetings, and hearings. Most legal transcription companies can manage a range of media including analog, digital, VOB, MPEG, WMV, Flash, FTR, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, CDs, DVDS, and live online sessions such as webinars.
• Some legal transcription companies offer deposition suite and meeting room spaces that are equipped with audio and video recording equipment.

It’s a good idea to look for a legal transcription company that offers a range of services including text streaming services, real-time stenographers, same-day court reporting, real time translation, medical transcription, and of course legal transcription services. If you want to do more learning about legal transcription, the second edition of Effective Depositions is a good resource.

Discuss Security and Privacy

The security and privacy of your files and data is extremely important. Make sure the legal transcription company has a privacy and security policy in place to protect your files.

Discuss how you will receive the files and finished transcript. Ask questions about data back-up and cloud storage services available to you and used by the company. Find out how many people will be working on your files and ask the legal transcription company how they can guarantee that your private data will not be leaked or shared.

Hiring a legal transcription company is the best decision you can make. Hiring someone who is fully certified and trained in legal transcription will save you time, reduce your stress, and ensure that end of the meeting, hearing, or session you have an accurate and reliable transcript.

Author: Dave Thomas