What are the Benefits of Using a Legal Document Specialist?

Sometimes all you need in life is a perfectly formatted document to enable you to get the job done and dusted, quickly! At OutSec Legal we have a range of document production, formatting and editing services all of which have been specifically designed for today's legal practice, to ensure their law firm or legal practice gets access to the services they need at the best price.

At the heart of our document production, formatting and editing services are our legal document specialists from document conversion experts to legal copy typists to Microsoft Word document experts. If you have a document and are having issues with the formatting, need a digital copy or need your document converting from one format to another, OutSec Legal's document specialists are here to help!

Why Use A Document Specialist?

Whether it is a file note, an attendance note, a letterhead, an invoice or the layout precedent for court documents, all legal professionals want is for their legal document templates to work as best as they can and that necessitates having a document specialist at hand. So what are the benefits of having a document specialist?

Legal professionals do not want long style guides which are too difficult to follow. Invariably, If a style guide is too complete to follow, fee earners will struggle to follow it.

Respondents in a recent survey for "The Lawyer" highlighted this very issue, with 25% of respondent fee earners saying they struggled to apply a house style. This means on average, one-quarter of all fee earners have issues with styles and formatting.

The issue with complex house styles is further compounded when documents leave a legal practice's control. If it is too complex, a third party will not follow that style. As a result, Microsoft Word documents are more likely to be returned to your practice with styles, formatting, indentations and numbering broken. This means your fee earner has to spend additional time trying to fix Microsoft Word issues not only before the document leaves your practice, but also when it arrives back to your fee earners. This, therefore, becomes an additional cost burden for your firm, especially at a time when law firms and legal practices need to be more efficient and where one-quarter of fee earners struggle to apply a house style, in the first place.

Time is, of course, an expensive commodity for law firms, especially where time is a limited resource. After all, there are only so many working hours in one day per fee earner. Therefore, having fee earners spending valuable charge-out time trying to resolve formatting issues, is not cost-effective for any legal practice.

Whilst it is great to have consistency in your Microsoft Word documents across your practice, legal practices need to ensure style guides can be applied by the many and not just the few. Therefore, there is a need to keep these house styles as simple as possible. Any style guide should be one page at best; two pages at most. If you are struggling with style guides, one of OutSec's Word document specialists could help you and your firm come up with a house style that works for your practice, to try and avoid such issues.

The other issue with complex Microsoft Word documents is the more complex they are the more likely they are to break, which as a legal practice you do not want either.

When documents break or you have issues, that's when you need to call in the experts to fix them. This is just another one of the reasons why you might need an outsourced document specialist and why OutSec Legal have these available at your fingertips.

Another issue facing legal practices today (whether they be barristers' chambers or law firms) is their templates and precedent documents themselves. Many legal documents, precedents and templates were set up many, many years ago. Some legal templates may now be hitting double figures in terms of age and as a result, some precedents could have been designed for older Microsoft Word versions. But did you know these can cause issues in terms of formatting when you use these in newer versions of Microsoft Word? Some older documents may not convert as well into different formats either when your template is older. Some legal precedents will also have been amended several times during their life which can result in larger file sizes as a result which can increase and make your legal documents more difficult to work with and manage as these document templates age. Again, this is another instance where an outsourced Microsoft Word document specialist can help your legal practice get things done more efficiently.

To resolve issues with older templates, what might be needed is for the template or precedent to be rebuilt, to bring the template back up to date and working for your current version of Microsoft Word in your legal practice. This is something which one of OutSec Legal's Microsoft Word© document specialists can help you with.

Simply, having a legal document specialist could be what you need to ensure that your legal document works; how you want it to work; when you want it to work.

A professional outsourced document specialist will be able to look at your current Microsoft Word document and suggest amendments and upgrades to it.

They will also be able to provide you with a new Microsoft Word template that works for your business today. A professional document specialist will be able to look at your Microsoft Word© document when numbering no longer runs sequentially or where a house style has become broken.

Why spend time trying to fix your Microsoft Word© document when an expert can do it for you? Wouldn't you call a plumber if you have a leak? The same applies to your legal Microsoft Word documents. A professional outsourced Microsoft Word document specialist can help resolve the issue rather than trying to do it yourself.

If you have a troublesome house style that no one can follow, why not speak to us? We might be able to simplify it for your legal practice to make it easier for people to follow. One of our legal Microsoft Word experts can help here too.

What Are the Benefits?

Below we look at reasons why your law firm or legal practice may need the help of a professional outsourced legal document specialist and the types of document specialist available.

Legal Copy Typing

Why Do Legal Practices Still Utilise Copy Typing Services?

There are many reasons why copy typing is still needed by legal practices today. Whilst some may think that these practices are "old fashioned" many do not realise how cost-effective this method of working can be.

Well we know there are times when people prefer to draft documents or handwrite notes, and then require a copy to be typed at a later date. Perhaps they have been handwriting a telephone attendance note whilst on the phone to a client. Perhaps they have the client in the office and are making notes for an attendance note and simply need it typed u after the client leaves. After all, it saves the fee earner time in dictating the note. The note simply can go to a typist for typing.

Perhaps they have a legal document or precedent they have saved and just need to scribble some amendments on it and like magic, the document is ready to go! Well almost, it needs typing. But for a lawyer, it means he can charge for drafting that document and move on to generate more income. Rather than spend time typing it himself (which might take him some considerable time).

Similarly, there are times in this modern world when copy typing of a document (or parts thereof) is needed. This is especially so, when a document is in a different format than needed, locked from editing or copying. For instance where you have an Office Copy Lease. Or where the document exists solely in a physical form and where an editable, digital version is needed, like a Will prepared by a different firm of lawyers.

There are also times when you have a physical document and need a digital version with some minor changes, where it is quicker and easier to send it to a professional document specialist leaving you to get on with your day-to-day work.

At OutSec Legal we have professional document specialists that specialise in copy-typing legal correspondence and documents.

Legal document specialists with copy typing skills are often referred to as touch typists as they can look at a document, and touch type without looking at their hands or screen.

Copy typing speeds for legal copy typists are often lower than they are for legal audio transcriptionists, which means that this work takes longer to do than audio transcription. However, the benefit here is that a fee earner does not need to spend time dictating a document which is already typed or in written form.

So what are the costs benefits of using a professional copy typist? Well below, we give a useful example to show why law firms still utilise legal copy typists and how it saves their practices time and money.

Case Study: Cost Savings By Using OutSec Legal for Legal Copy Typing

Julie is a solicitor and works in London. She had worked as a typist prior to being a solicitor and can type at an average speed. She is paid £80,000. Her hourly salaried rate is approximately £41 per hour (she works Monday to Friday, 7.5 hours days a week). She has no access to any support. She charges an hourly rate of £140 per hour.

Julie has a printed 10,000-word lease precedent. She does not have digital which she needs for one of her clients.

She has a couple of options available to her:

• Type the 10,000-word lease herself; or

• Outsource that copy typing to a specialist copy typist.

Typing The Document Herself

Julie would spend 250 minutes typing a 10,000-word document herself if she was typing at a speed of 40 words per minute, therefore the cost to her firm in producing the document would be £170.

However, in the process, Julie would be working less efficiently as she has in effect lost 250 minutes of chargeable time for her firm. Julie's charge-out rate is £140 per hour, therefore by typing the document herself, she has lost approximately £583.

This means that the true cost of Julie producing the document herself (cost of production + lost time to the firm) is actually £753.

Outsourcing The Copy Typing To OutSec Legal

In this example, we deliberately said Julie was a secretary prior to becoming a solicitor. This is so we could assume that any copy typist would type at the same rate as Julie, which is unlikely. However, this demonstrates why it was still more cost-efficient to outsource. In practice, however, the favour would generally be tipped in the copy typist's favour, as normally they would type much quicker than a fee earner would.

That aside, by outsourcing the document, the cost of production for the document would be: 250 x £0.40 = £100 plus VAT = £120.

This means the firm has saved £50 on one document alone. However, Julie's time has been freed up by 250 minutes, meaning she has time to generate additional income for her firm up to that amount. This means that by outsourcing the document the firm Julie could go on to generate income for the firm in the sum of up to £583. Meaning production costs can rise to £633.

So whilst savings may start at £50 these can rise up to £633 depending on how much chargeable time Julie does in those 250 minutes. Meaning that a law firm could be losing a large amount of revenue here if Julie decided to type this document herself.

This is why people continue to use copy typing and why outsourcing this production makes so sense to legal practices to this day. So why not use one of our legal document specialists today?

Fix and Formatting: A Microsoft Word Formatting Service

Are you having formatting issues with your Microsoft Word document? Struggling to fix automatic numbering so it runs sequentially? Well, you are not alone! This is why we created our fix & format service; to help lawyers in need of assistance when Microsoft Word© is not playing ball.

Table of contents, internal cross-referencing, fields and hyperlinking, these are all features of advanced document production. For some fee earners, simple document production tasks such as automatic numbering, tabulation and/or section breaks can prove difficult.

In a survey for “The Lawyer”, these challenges affecting legal professionals were well documented:

“Some 30 per cent of survey respondents stated that they frequently find applying numbering challenging. Meanwhile, 29 per cent frequently find it challenging to ensure indentations are currently aligned…and almost 25 per cent frequently find it challenging to update a document to a house style”.

Document templates should be easy for all to use. This is even more so the case for those with basic Microsoft Word skills. Templates should also be easy for collaborators whether these be in-house or external third-party collaborators. If Microsoft Word document users and collaborators struggle to apply your house style, then clearly your house style does not work. A house style needs to match the skill set of those that will use it, to ensure successful document production within your legal practice. The same applies to features like automatic numbering, cross-referencing and tables of contents.

Document Conversion

There are times when you may have a legal document in one format and need it in another one. Perhaps you have a locked PDF and need an editable version of it. Perhaps your client does not have access to Microsoft Word© and wants documents in a more accessible format, such as portable document format (PDF).

Perhaps your client uses Open Office or has sent you a document in a format you are unable to open, say from Apple Pages. Well do not despair here at OutSec Legal we have document file conversion specialists available to your legal practice at the touch of a button. If we are unable to convert it, we also have our legal copy-typing service.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

The main benefit of portable document format files (PDF) are they work on all devices.

However, there may be times when you may need to convert a PDF to Word. Perhaps you need to create:

an editable copy of the original physical document for reuse or repurpose; or

editable sections of text from the original physical document(s) for reuse or repurpose.

Alternatively, you may wish to create a PDF from Microsoft Word to send to someone who may have a copy of Microsoft Word.

Again these are all areas where an OutSec Legal document specialist can assist.

Conversion from PDF to Word

It may come as a surprise but not all portable document format files (PDFs) are created equally. Whilst some documents in PDF format enable documents to be converted to Microsoft Word, some do not. This is especially true where image files of a text document have been placed into a PDF, instead of the document being created by Microsoft Word to start with. This often occurs when files have been scanned into a PDF format. This is why most PDFs at HM Land Registry are unable to be converted to Word directly from a PDF.

Where PDFs do convert, the issue is that often the formatting from the original document is rarely kept. You may get the text if you are lucky. Sometimes Word uses optical character recognition (OCR) to change the PDF to text. Where text has been poorly scanned in, it can mean that sometimes text can look like gobbledegook. It can also mean that some words may not have been picked up correctly, so inaccuracies can occur here, meaning the document would need proofreading.

So having produced a converted Microsoft Word version of a portable document format (PDF) document is all good and well. To make it useable is a different kettle of fish. Sometimes, it can be quicker for a copy typist to retype the whole document, than actually try and sort out what has been produced from file conversion.

PDF documents which are protected cannot be converted unless you have a password, meaning that copy typing here is the only option.

Again, a professional document specialist can inspect your PDF document and give you an idea of how to best proceed.

Document Conversion from Word to PDF

A document specialist can also format Microsoft Word documents so that they can be converted into PDF documents too. Therefore, if you need a Word document converted into PDF, they can advise you on the best ways to structure documents to get the best out of the PDF format.

Creating & Updating Your Legal Practices' Standard Documents, Legal Precedents & Templates

Are you using the same document precedent repeatedly? Do you copy and paste standard paragraphs into your Microsoft Word documents? If you do, then creating standard template documents could be what you need. This will help improve the consistency and quality of the documents produced by your law firm or legal practice. It will also save you time and therefore help improve productivity across your practice.

Sometimes, all you just is a fresh pair of eyes to see what works best for your legal practice today and a document specialist can help you do just that.

Cost Savings by Outsourcing the Updating Your Legal Precedents and Templates or Fixing and Formatting Your Legal Microsoft Word Documents

It is always going to be more cost-effective and productive for this type of work to be outsourced. You will pay from £27 per hour for a professional Microsoft Word specialist to locate the problem with your document verses your fee earner's charge-out rate which will be a lot higher and in three digits as opposed to being in two.

A Trusted UK Legal Document Production Company

Secure Legal Document Production, Formatting & Editing Service

OutSec Legal are Cyber Essentials Certified and GDPR-compliant Legal document production company. We employ bank-level security so your data stays safe and are audited on an annual basis.

Quality Legal Document Production

We guarantee accurate transcription and document formatting and editing service. Our legal document production, formatting and editing team have a minimum of 10 years of experience working in the legal sector together with CILEX or Legal Secretarial qualifications. This enables us to provide the best quality legal documents to your legal practice.

Guaranteed Turnaround Times

Fast turnaround times to ensure your legal documents are amended, formatted, edited and returned to your practice on time. We also offer urgent transcription for those who are under time pressures

Frequently Asked Questions

At OutSec Legal, we are always happy to answer any questions you may have.

That is why we have put together a searchable set of frequently asked questions just for you:

However, if you have any additional questions why not get in touch.

What Makes OutSec Legal The Best Legal Transcription Service & Legal Document Formatting Service in the UK?

With OutSec Legal there are no contracts, no monthly fees, no minimum spends or hidden fees. The service is on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning you are in control;
OutSec Legal has been designed exclusively for the legal sector to offer the best quality remote legal typing and legal document production, formatting and editing services at cost-effective pricing;
OutSec Legal's services are perfect for sole practitioners, barristers, mediators, law costs draftsmen, law firms, in-house legal departments and barrister's chambers;
OutSec Legal are GDPR compliant;
OutSec Legal are ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials certified which are audited and assessed independently;
OutSec Legal only use experienced legal secretaries, legal copy typists, notetakers, minute takers, legal document production and editing specialists, all of whom have signed strict confidentiality agreements with us.;
With OutSec Legal there is no need for expensive dictation equipment;
OutSec Legal offers a free dictation app to customers. This allows legal dictation files to be recorded on your smartphone or tablet;

OutSec Legal is based in the United Kingdom and is a UK-registered company;
OutSec Legal offers copy typing, fix and format, file conversion and legal authoring services to name but a few;
OutSec Legal provides itemised billing each month, so you know what you have spent and when;
OutSec Legal are able to work with your existing legal precedents, legal templates or lists of standard paragraphs;
Our document production specialists can even improve upon existing templates or precedents for you to improve productivity;
OutSec Legal offers multi-voice transcription. We can transcribe recorded remote meetings and provide Zoom transcription., Microsoft Teams transcription & Skype transcription;
We can also work directly with your existing case management software such as Proclaim, ALB, Ochresoft, Intelliworks, LEAP, Visualfiles and many more;
OutSec Legal can integrate with leading digital dictation software platforms such as BigHand, Dictamen, Olympus ODMS and Philips Speechwrite.