Philips Partners with Verdatum to Expand Speech to US Legal Market

Under a new partnership agreement, legal documentation services provider Verdatum will integrate SpeechMagic speech recognition technologies from Royal Philips Electronics into its digital dictation solution to provide attorneys with a fully automated dictation and speech recognition workflow.

Verdatum’s counts among its client base the top 200 American law firms.

"Verdatum perfectly compliments our distribution network of more than 200 companies worldwide, helping Philips to further build its position in the U.S. legal market," said Marcel Wassink, CEO of Philips Speech Recognition Systems. "The company’s customer base will now have immediate access to innovative speech recognition technology, and SpeechMagic’s industrial-grade features will help Verdatum attract new customers for their digital dictation solution."

"The market pull for speech recognition is becoming stronger; with law firms looking for future-proof solutions that allow them to increase their efficiency and set the basis for future growth," explained John Methfessel, president and CEO of Verdatum. "However, one of the most convincing arguments for implementing speech recognition is the speed of service triggered by this technology due to the significantly improved availability of legal documentation. Adding the capability of speech recognition to our solution will position our law firm customers to serve their clients with even greater efficiency and responsiveness. The combination of Philips and Verdatum is a win-win for all law firms."

Verdatum will integrate SpeechMagic in a back-end workflow that increases the productivity of legal secretaries, as it provides them with a transcript of the dictations. Secretaries will only need to review and format the recognized text, which has shown to be up to 50 percent faster than typing.
The Verdatum Digital Dictation System 2.0 Gold powered by SpeechMagic will be available in the fall.