Neil A. Goldberg Goldberg Segalla, LLP Buffalo, New York

Achieve Results Training Helps Goldberg Segalla Boost Productivity and Reduce Administrative Costs Neil Goldberg, senior trial partner at Goldberg Segalla LLP, travels four days a week representing major insured and self-insured entities in commercial, catastrophic personal injury, and complex regulatory matters. In the past, being out of the office for much of the week has meant heavy reliance on a digital recorder to capture and reproduce his thoughts following client meetings. Although the process worked, Goldberg recognized it was inefficient. So in February 2008, he was trained by the speech recognition specialists at Achieve Results Training in the use of Dragon Naturally Speaking software. His hope was to replace dictating with speech recognition for immediate document creation. Replace Dictation with Speech Recognition Already, just a few weeks later, he is seeing results. "You spend the same amount of time dictating versus speaking, but you're able to refine what you've drafted more quickly. It's a great time-saver," Goldberg has found. Recognizing the great productivity improvements that are possible, the plan is for many more Goldberg Segalla attorneys to be trained in the coming months. Goldberg was the first to test out speech recognition software and, having achieved productivity improvements almost immediately, four to six other attorneys are scheduled to be trained in March.

Reduce Administrative Staffing Levels With each attorney capable of generating documents by speaking rather than dictating or typing, the firm's reliance on administrative staff will decline. "Our goal is to have 3 – 3.5 attorneys per secretary," says Goldberg, instead of the current ratio of 2-2.5 attorneys per secretary. "It will allow us to be more efficient in our use of staff," he explains. "We're talking a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars," he says. Improve Work Quality Perhaps even more important, however, is the improved accuracy of the client documents generated. Speech recognition software "allows you to create a more accurate and complete work product," says Goldberg.

Enable Aggressive Growth That focus on quality of work, Best Practices, and responsiveness is part of the reason Goldberg Segalla has grown from just seven attorneys in 2001, when the firm was founded, to 95 attorneys today. In addition to its Buffalo headquarters, the firm has 10 offices, in New York, Philadelphia, Princeton, and Hartford. Enhanced efficiency, increased productivity, and improved quality of product – all through speech recognition.

Interview by Marcia Layton Turner, Layton & Co.