Justice Ministry in Hesse Deploys Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking to 1,300 Workstations

MUNICH, Germany and BURLINGTON, Mass. - The Hesse Justice Ministry will deploy Nuance Communications' Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Legal to more than 1,300 legal workstations. Leveraging expertise from 4voice AG, a German software integration specialist and Nuance partner, the Hesse Justice Ministry selected Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition to support its modernization initiative and help eliminate issues associated with manual transcription. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal converts speech into text at up to 160 words per minute.

Historically, legal professionals at the Hesse Justice Ministry dictated their reports, and these reports were then routed for manual transcription by administrative personnel. Following a decision by the Baden-Wurttemberg Justice Ministry to implement Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal, the Hesse Justice Ministry chose to deploy Nuance's speech recognition solution to its judges, state prosecutors, and court clerks.

"Through our modernization effort - 'From box files to laptops' - a new working environment, with high standards of equipment and personnel, has been created in the courtrooms, public prosecutors' offices, prisons, and the Justice Ministry itself," said Dr. Thomas Schafer, state secretary at the Hesse Justice Ministry. "We were so impressed by the increase in productivity achieved by using Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking during the pilot phase that we convinced the Ministry to support its full deployment. The key point that led us to our final decision was the extraordinarily high recognition rate and the training programs offered by 4voice AG."

"However, the use of speech recognition in the workplace is not about cutting jobs, but rather to increase productivity and ensure the Justice Ministry continues to respond to constantly increasing demands," added Dr. Schafer. "With the implementation of this speech recognition software, our Ministry not only expects to accelerate its work processes, but also to assure the quality of the legal services it provides. In this way we will improve the acceptance of justice in Hesse among those seeking legal assistance."

Dragon NaturallySpeaking can also be integrated with other applications, including electronic records management systems, electronic forms, and legal and court-cost billing products.