Across the legal system, transcription delays are becoming more common.
“There are two big factors that have changed the court reporting and transcription landscape,” said Matthew Schwartz, Verbit’s Director of Marketing. “One — a shortage of stenographers, and two — a surge in remote proceedings.
“Just to quantify it, around 1,100 stenographers retire each year, while about 200 enter the field. That creates a national shortage of thousands of stenographers. At the same time, COVID accelerated the use of remote hearings, and while remote access has clear benefits — improving accessibility and flexibility — it also introduced a whole new set of challenges, especially when it comes to capturing and transcribing proceedings.”
With a shrinking pool of stenographers now reserved for high-profile cases, many courts have turned to digital court reporters, but these professionals often can’t produce transcripts in real time. The result? A growing backlog of audio recordings with no text, overburdened court staff, delayed proceedings and rising costs tied to rush orders and administrative overload.
However, emerging legal technology, like Verbit’s AI-powered Legal Capture transcription platform, is meeting this challenge head-on. Legal Capture offers a scalable, secure solution to streamline workflows and help courts regain control and prevent transcription backlogs before they begin.
Clearing the Courtroom Backlog
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about the challenges courts face and how Verbit is helping streamline digital workflows and securely deliver certified transcripts.
How Verbit is simplifying legal transcription — from upload to certified final
Verbit’s Legal Capture tool is a fully editable, intelligent system that seamlessly integrates into existing court workflows. It provides real-time, editable transcripts using automatic speech recognition (ASR) and enables users to edit the text, adjust speaker identification and view changes immediately.
The platform is designed specifically for the legal industry, offering an intuitive, end-to-end solution that makes transcription faster, more accurate and more collaborative than ever before.
“Using a solution like Verbit’s gives you a single platform that blends automated speech recognition with human review,” said Schwartz. “You can upload existing recordings whether it’s one file or hundreds and have them transcribed quickly all on a single platform.
“And digital court reporters can use our legal capture solution to record proceedings, produce rough drafts in real time and order final certified transcripts at just the push of a button.
“Our hybrid model gets the first draft done by automatic speech recognition technology which allows our team — or your team — to review and finalize it faster. Whether you’re dealing with a single transcript or backlog of hundreds, you can just upload your files and let the platform take it from there.”
Verbit’s customer dashboard offers law firms and legal departments a clear view into the status of every transcription job. From there, users can upload audio files, monitor progress through various stages of completion and download transcripts in multiple formats.
“This is the same post-production platform that our transcribers work on,” said Cathy Ross, Verbit’s Legal Delivery Manager. “Whether you’re providing us audio files for us to complete for you, or maybe you have a team of in-house transcribers, we would all use this platform.
“If you do have a team of in-house transcribers, we also have training available and we’re happy to walk you through any questions that they might have.”
The platform supports audio upload from a variety of sources, including direct file uploads, Google Drive, Box and public URLs. Whether it’s a client interview, court hearing, deposition or internal meeting, users can upload files individually or in bulk, which is ideal for multi-day cases like “Day 1” and “Day 2” of a proceeding.
Three layers of transcription built for legal use
Verbit’s transcription process offers three progressive layers of accuracy and review:
- ASR transcripts. Verbit’s Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology creates an instant transcript and editable text file. This option is ideal for quick reviews and internal reference.
- Human-enhanced rough drafts. A human layer is added to clean up the ASR transcript. While not certified, this version is useful for first drafts of legal documents and prep materials.
- Certified final transcripts. Completed with finalized cover pages, speaker IDs and accurate formatting, these transcripts meet legal certification standards. Verbit’s platform enables custom templates for cover pages, exhibits and appearance listings, all of which can be tailored to your specific needs.
Smarter than your standard captions
Unlike basic automated transcription tools, Verbit’s Legal Capture is context-aware. Legal professionals can pre-load information like speaker names, company names and case-specific terminology before the session begins. This custom vocabulary ensures accurate spellings and terminology throughout the transcript, eliminating the common errors found in general-purpose ASR tools.
“Our automatic speech recognition engine, the real magic behind it, is that it can be taught about your session beforehand,” said Emma Deshields, Verbit Senior Customer Success Manager.
“So with Zoom teams automated captioning, what you’re going to find is those people’s names, company names, they’re just not going to be correct because it isn’t in their dictionary. What you’re able to do is add to the dictionary before the session. That means [the names are] going to come out spelled correctly, and you don’t need to add those manually. If you have the notice of deposition or any other documentation, it’s a drag-and-drop process when you book and we’ll have those terms all already lined up for you.”
Voice signatures for accurate attribution
Further simplifying the process, Verbit’s advanced voice signature technology distinguishes speakers by their vocal patterns. Once a speaker is identified in the audio, the system remembers and attributes future speech automatically, dramatically reducing the time spent manually labeling speakers.
Interested in learning more?
Check out our on-demand webinar and discover why courts trust Verbit’s secure platform to deliver certified, compliant transcripts.
Rely on an expert
By combining real-time transcription, intelligent automation and human expertise, Verbit is helping legal professionals keep pace with today’s demands, eliminate backlogs and deliver accurate, certified transcripts faster than ever. Contact one of our experts for more details.