The survey is conducted by the US-based ILTA. The international association provides its members with educational content as well as peer-networking opportunities to discuss technology-related legal issues. The organisation represents lawyers and other professionals in the technology sector. The Technology Survey, which was conducted in December 2014, reports on the input of 454 firms representing more than 106,000 attorneys and 217,000 total users.

Participants ranked Nuance eCopy ShareScan as the leading document scanning workflow software; Nuance Copitrak and Equitrac Professional as the two leading cost recovery solutions; Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Dragon Dictate desktop and Dragon Dictation mobile offerings as the leading speech recognition solutions, and Nuance PDF Pro as the second-leading PDF software.

“The legal profession is transforming into a digital business, so the ability to efficiently create and store documents, without any errors or lapses in security, is increasingly vital,” said Mark Levine, senior director product and strategy of professional products for Nuance Document Imaging.

“ILTA’s recognition of Nuance’s portfolio reflects our ability to help law firms – large and small – gain control of document processes to drive productivity, ensure compliance and enhance profitability.”

In the document scanning category, Nuance eCopy ShareScan was ranked the top software, with 22 percent while Nuance Copitrak has shown steady growth and now holds a 17 percent share. Nuance scanning solutions provide law firms with everything needed to automate paper-to-digital workflows, enabling legal professionals to scan, capture, process paper documents right from the copier. The software works with MFPs from the world’s leading vendors, including HP, Canon, Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Xerox.

Nuance Capture solutions, which include AutoStore, Copitrak and eCopy ShareScan, have been named the leader all four years that ILTA has included the document scanning and workflow category in their survey. For the first time in the history of this survey, ILTA asked respondents which software they primarily provide for editing and redacting PDF files. Twenty-eight percent reported using Nuance PDF solutions (Nuance PDF Pro, Nuance eCopy PaperWorks and Nuance Power PDF), which enable users to create, edit and convert PDFs with greater productivity.

Combined, two-thirds of all law firms that participated in the survey rely on Nuance solutions to recover costs associated with document printing, scanning and copying. Nuance Copitrak’s platform provides a consistent and intuitive user interface that enables users to access powerful workflows from their desktops or MFPs while ensuring security, compliance and maximizing billable recoveries. Nuance Equitrac Professional maximizes the recovery of billable hardcopy expenses with a cost tracking interface embedded into the MFP.

52 percent of law firms utilise Dragon NaturallySpeaking or Dragon Dictate on desktops – nearly a 50 percent increase since 2011 – while 16 percent use dictation via smartphone apps. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Legal edition allows attorneys and legal professionals to use their voice to compose and edit materials like contracts, briefs and court documents, write and send emails, and document client and case information - three times faster than typing on a keyboard.

For the full results of the 2014 ILTA Technology Survey, visit their website here.

For more information about Nuance’s document imaging or voice solutions for the legal community, please visit Australia.nuance.com.