This is one in a series of brief posts rounding up what I saw and heard at LegalTech New York.

Last year I reviewed the digital dictation system BigHand. As I noted then, the company describes its product as “voice productivity and workflow” software. It provides not only cloud and enterprise dictation systems, but also a dictation workflow that delivers, prioritizes and assigns dictation projects to support staff.

BighandlogoAt LegalTech this year, BigHand announced the forthcoming release of a new product, BigHand Now, which it describes as a “comprehensive task delegation platform for law firms.” This new product will extend BigHand’s existing workflow tools to capture more input methods — including email, working documents and manual forms — in addition to dictation.

Lawyers will be able to drag and drop items from Word or email directly into the workflow tool. The interface will allow firms to design customized forms to be completed when submitting specific work types to make sure the required information is completed when the task is submitted.

For attorneys, the advantage of this product will be having a single, customizable interface for assigning tasks to administrative staff. For administrative staff, the advantage will be a unified repository of all pending work and the ability to manage and prioritize assignments from a single interface.

A beta version of BigHand Now will be rolled out for testing in April with the full release scheduled for August.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.