Large Electronic Bundle Award Winner

8 Mar 2022 | Insights

Legal Innovation Award Winner for Largest Electronic Bundle

The annual award scheme, organised by Zylpha, recognises legal practices that have demonstrated innovative solutions and working practices over the previous 12 months. There were five legal innovation award categories.

Bluebird won the category “Bundle of the Year 2022” to recognise the largest electronic bundle produced.

Innovation in E-bundling Services

At client requests to provide a resource, we quickly learnt that bundling documents is not a daily task. Bundling is needed ad hoc and dependent on the progress of a client’s case. We designed a flexible resource for our clients to tap into when they need it. We adapted our existing cloud technologies and partnered with Zylpha for e-bundling.

Why an award for the largest electronic bundle?

If you can imagine organising, photocopying and bundling 4,500 individual documents consisting of around half a million pages, then you will see that it’s no easy feat. The only difference between the paper and electronic version of the large bundle is physical space.

It takes a lot of organisational effort and time to collate the documents in the required order. Having reliable technology is essential to produce the bundle for the court’s requirements. Managing electronic files needs a significant attention to detail and very clear processes to prevent errors. The large electronic bundle consisted of 26 separate PDF files which, between them, contained 4,500 individual documents (around half a million pages).

Although the documents to be bundled were very well organised, the documents themselves were complex in that they had embedded plans and bibles which meant lot of megabytes and compression to reduce the file size.

A team effort for managing the large electronic bundle

Credit must be given to the legal teams and expert witnesses involved. The index was very well organised, files were named in a structure easy to locate within SharePoint folders. There were minimal missing documents and the legal teams were very quick with responses. There must have been an inordinate amount of time spent in preparing the index alone.

What’s the difference between a large electronic bundle and a standard e-bundle?

The difference is the sheer volume of work involved. Every client must have trust and confidence in us to manage their data. We treat every piece of work as a high priority. Whether it’s for a Litigant In Person or a huge multi-million dollar commercial dispute, for the individuals involved, it’s a stressful and high pressure task to meet very serious deadlines. You can rely on us to treat you and your work with the utmost respect.

How does outsourcing digital dictation work

11 Feb 2022 | Insights

How to outsource digital dictation

The first question you want to know: how does outsourcing digital dictation work? And the answer to that is very simple. Digital dictation takes the audio recordings of your voice notes (dictations) and sends them over the internet to the outsourced typist who will then return your completed transcribed document to you.

But that’s not all you want to know, is it? I expect you need to know what to dictate into, which digital dictation devices, if there’s any extra software needed, how does the typist know what to type? Here’s the answer to the most frequent asked questions and my reasons for them.

Which digital dictation device is best?

Much depend on your style of working, whether you prefer to sit at your computer and if you already have a digital dictation system.

Since most of our work can be available on our mobile phones it will come as no surprise that there are plenty of options for digital dictation apps. A dictation app will operate in the same way as any stand-alone device with the usual controls to pause, rewind, play and record. The beauty of the app is it will send your dictations from your mobile so you have the freedom to work anywhere and at any time.

One of the main advantages of using mobile digital dictation apps is the software can sit on your phone and nowhere else. You don’t need to install on your wider computer network and you can have all of the benefits of outsourced digital dictation within minutes.

That said, some businesses have internal secretaries and want to use outsourcing as a backup. So there is a need for a more comprehensive system that can route work to different resources. We recommend the cloud based system Speechwrite360 as it doesn’t touch your existing infrastructure and offers a full workflow solution with lots of automation features and full reporting.

What if we have an existing digital dictation system?

We can integrate with most existing digital dictation systems and the benefit means little or no change to how you’re currently working. The main change is that instead of your recordings being transferred to your inhouse typist, you have the option of choosing to outsource so you have greater flexibility in how you work.

Producing your dictated documents in your format

Not only are your dictations transcribed into your templates but humans can far more easily understand instructions than any speech recognition. For example, if you have a standard report template that is many pages long and contains standard text, you can dictate to us to fill in the blanks.

A long 30-page report may therefore only take 5 minutes of dictation to complete and you only pay for the dictation length, not the length of the document. It’s straight forward to set up as we simply take a copy of any existing precedents and templates you have so you will always receive consistency from us.

Receiving your completed outsourced dictation work

There are a variety of ways to receive your completed work and the one you choose will depend on (a) ease of use (b) security of data (c) efficiency of working practices.

To start with, the easiest to use and which most people are comfortable with, is email. We will simply attach the completed transcript and send it by email to an address you choose, whether that’s yourself or an administration point.

If security of data is paramount, then you may prefer to download your completed work from a portal.

If you have case management systems then you may decide to grant your outsourced team access so they can work for you just as an inhouse secretary would. You retain all of the efficiencies of your case management system for template management, filing, time recording and diary management.

The choice for outsourcing is all yours

As you can see, outsourcing digital dictation has quite a few options as to how it works. It is easy to get started and quick to set up. Contact us if you would like to discuss how you could work with outsourcing digital dictation and please visit our Pricing page for current costs.

Formatting your e-bundle pagination

21 Sep 2021 | Insights

Not paginating an e-bundle properly causes confusion but the confusion starts with “what is page one?”

Formatting e-bundle pagination properly is a top concern for our clients, and rightly too, when a case may be sanctioned.

It’s a natural conclusion to make that we want our electronic bundles to mimic the paper version of a ring binder. Nobody would put a page number on the title page of a ring binder, would they?

But since e-bundles have been mandated, the interpretation of the rules by different courts is now causing some confusion.

For the sake of this exercise, let’s forget paper bundles ever existed, and simply focus on a single PDF document.

The PDF document must have continuous page numbering throughout. There are a variety of instructions on the internet on how to insert continuous page numbering②, and how that numbering must be linked to the document index.

To add more confusion about pagination, if the bundle is split into sections, the index can have a different page numbering scheme③.

Overall, the page numbers will never match the number of the page of the PDF itself①. So, what do we do about that?

We can format e-bundling pagination to appear as you (and the court) would like it.

Obviously, it helps to know which court requires which specific pagination format. This article contains useful links t

This image is an example of a standard bundle to be submitted to the Family Court. Its layout mimics the old-fashioned ring binder and the PDF is navigable from the bookmarks, the index page and simple scrolling.

If you require a bundle with a different pagination format it can be made for you, just let us know how you (and the court) want it formatted. You can learn more information about preparing your ebundle here.

Update: Court guidance has been updated on 29th November 2021 and includes reference to page numbering. In particular:

“All pages in an e-bundle must be numbered by computer-generated numbering, not by hand. The numbering should start at page 1 for the first page of the bundle (whether or not that is part of an index) and the numbering must follow sequentially to the last page of the bundle, so that the pagination matches the pdf numbering. If a hard copy of the bundle is produced, the pagination must match the e-bundle.”

So that we can follow this request, we will no longer include a cover page to the bundle and page number 1 will appear on the first page of the index.

Cut admin costs with Microsoft 365

7 Sep 2021 | Insights

Harnessing Microsoft 365 technology reduces admin costs

It’s a huge win to business to cut admin costs using Microsoft 365 technology. Admin is the tasks that must happen for the business to operate, services to be delivered and products sold. Every business has administration and every business owner looks to contain or reduce overhead caused by admin. Regulated businesses, eg professional services, may have a greater admin overhead for maintaining compliance. If the activity isn’t generating new business or delivering sales, then I’m afraid, that’s admin.

As a small business, the owners do much of the admin themselves until the tasks become too burdensome and time-consuming. Hiring staff becomes the go-to solution to grow a business but this in itself causes more admin to simply manage the staff.

Where can we make cost savings with admin changes?

Business overheads include office space, utility bills, travel costs, consumables (read paper and ink). Administration (from the verb to administrate) is the actionable task, not just overhead items.

To reduce admin costs we should look at how we work, not just what we buy. Usually it involves passing information from one party to another. This leads us very nicely to our use of technology. Almost every business uses tech: book-keeping apps, email and text communication, and more recently formalised video conferencing.

In equal measures, most are missing opportunities to maximise the benefits of the tech available.

Microsoft’s 365 (formerly Office 365) is a great example of a large tech platform which has dozens of apps – all free to use and included in its subscription. But not many know what it can do to improve efficiency.

What stops us?

The biggest elephant in the room, a topic that needs to be addressed head on, is fear. There is a real fear about change. And fear has a voice, and it says many things:

I don’t have a budget.
My staff don’t need to know.
They don’t like change.
I’m too old to learn.
It’s too big a change to tackle.

What happens if we don’t change?

Without change we do not remain stuck, we fall backwards. Our competitors gain the edge, our staff move onto other opportunities, and the business may be considered ‘old fashioned’, or ‘traditional’. At worst, the business is perceived as inefficient and wasteful.

We can reply to the voice of fear with the simple question, “What if …?”. It’s possible to remove all limiting beliefs around change, learning new skills, improving efficiency, reducing cost.

Breaking down administration tasks

Throughout the day there are a number of tasks that need to be done. The traditional way of getting the tasks done is to pay someone an hourly rate.

As an outsource provider, we perform the specific tasks for our clients and they pay only for the task which is agreed, time bound and has a fixed cost.

The same method can be applied to training, implementing small changes, introducing new technologies and new ways of quickly getting tasks done.

Where to start?

In the never-ending chaos of business it’s easy to be in a constant state of fire-fighting. But we can use this state to our advantage and listen to what’s happening with ourselves and our staff and we can ask some questions:

What is the cause of frustration?
How did x error happen?
What are the most frequent tasks in the business?
What causes service delivery to be slower?
What information am I missing on a daily basis?

Just pick one. It’s a low-hanging fruit to make a start on implementing some improvements.

Harness Microsoft 365 technology

Microsoft 365 has so many apps that it’s easy to become overwhelmed with what’s on offer.

Here are our top apps that can give you quick wins.

Microsoft Bookings

Let your customers book their own appointments directly to your calendar. It can also arrange an online Teams meetings, works for retail salons as well as professional office meetings, and manages multiple team members in one easy screen. It’s free so you don’t need to pay for any other third party calendar apps.

Microsoft Teams

Create department teams, group chats, host online meetings, share document libraries from SharePoint, add your favourite apps like Planner (Microsoft Tasks), PowerApps, a knowledge area using Wiki. Creating departments in Teams is necessary as you’ll agree the finance team don’t need the same information as the marketing team.

OneDrive

OneDrive is a cloud storage for you to store all of your documents and it synchronises across multiple devices. OneDrive is used for your personal documents but these documents can also be shared so you can collaborate in real time – yes two people can type in the same document at the same time.

SharePoint

If OneDrive is a filing cabinet for your documents, then SharePoint is an internet of them. There is so much you can do: create an intranet site, link document libraries to Teams, maintain lists of data, create PowerApps from those lists, create communication sites and client portals. Learn more about effective use of PowerApps and low code in this Microsoft article.

Forms

Do you need a survey or to collect information? Designing a form is very quick and easy and all of your answers can be stored in a SharePoint list. Think of a SharePoint list as an online shareable Excel sheet but without the complication of Excel.

Do you want to learn more?

Bluebird is built on Microsoft 365 and is a wholly remote and digital business (except for our legal secretaries who are very much human). We have extensive experience in creating, operating and building remote teams for very fast service delivery to our clients. If you would like a demonstration of how Microsoft 365 and Bluebird could help your business cut admin please get in touch.

Advanced Word Skills Training

5 May 2021 | Insights

Learn these top 3 Advanced Word Skills which are guaranteed to save lawyers time and produce Word documents easily, quickly, and without errors.

You may be spending a disproportionate amount of time on your Microsoft Word documents that you simply cannot charge for (or perhaps you can, and you are!). Fixing errors and formatting can be frustrating, especially if you’re working in other people’s documents. If that’s the case, you have little control over how the document is constructed and often they may not work as you would expect.

Many law firms are losing experienced support staff, more lawyers are working from home on their own, and many more seem to be setting up their own firm.

In this digital world now forced upon us by the pandemic, it is important that your continuing competence (CPD) includes a most frequently-used application – Microsoft Word. We feel it’s about time relevant Advanced Word Skills training is offered to help you. Why Advanced Word Skills are important to have

Advanced skills mean less time is spent on formatting and your drafting is faster. We’re often told that lawyers type and write as they think, and it’s important to get the first draft prepared quickly.

As you know, your documents will go through a number of iterations and versions, with changes made not only by you but by your opponents. Using best practice for your document construction (ie how a document is built up from the template) will also make your opponents’ life easier too.

And all of that will make you look great! After all, nobody likes poorly formatted documents.

Course Content: top 3 errors people make in documents and why they are bad!

In any training course you need to have some context so you can quickly learn and apply your new skills. In this module, we will demonstrate to you what happens when:

Show/Hide. Most people don’t use the Show/Hide button and some don’t even know it’s there. This button reveals formatting marks, such as tabs, spaces, paragraph marks, among others. It might sound unimportant, but these hidden marks are often why document formatting goes awry and large gaps are left on your page.
Pasting Incorrectly. It’s not just CTRL V. In fact most people are not aware that you cannot use CTRL V shortcut or even ALT CTRL V to paste text into a document correctly. Pasting Text Only is very important but sometimes even doing that will not give you the result you are looking for. It’s not how you paste, but where you paste.
Fixing Styles. When you get a wrong number, you don’t need to delete anything. You need to change the Style, and changing a Style is simply a matter of selecting the correct Style from the Style Gallery. In a good template, the gallery will be concise and clear what should be used to style your documents.

If this sounds too advanced, then fear not. The live demonstration and support will make everything clear.

Course Content: you will learn your top 3 fixes to make you look great

Now that you understand how frustrations and errors are caused, we’ll show you the right way to format your document. You won’t learn everything there is to know as Microsoft Word is a large and complex application. But you will have a great starting point on your journey of gaining Advanced Word Skills.

More importantly, the top 3 fixes we will give you are guaranteed to save you time in the future.

Turn on your Show/Hide Button – Lots of people will probably have worked on your document before you, and their skills may be lacking. Turning on the Show/Hide button reveals the formatting marks that have been put into the document and will reveal why there are unwanted gaps on your page. It also allows you to paste text so that you never get the wrong number on your paragraph.
Use a good template with Styles that work – The ground floor of a good Word document is a good template. If you are working on a document that is old, originated somewhere else or has not been created properly, the Style Gallery will be cluttered. This makes it impossible for you to know what Style to apply to get the number you want on your paragraph. If the template is a good template, you will be able to see what you should use and always produce accurate documents.
Follow best practice principles in Word – Word is like any other software package; you must follow its rules or you will not get the result you want. While there may be a lot of workarounds in Word which can seem helpful, they will usually end up breaking the document. Following best practice principles in Word – doing it properly from the outset and following Word’s rules – will mean your document is stable and error-free right to the end of your deal.

Your Q&A

We have set aside 15 minutes at the end of the session to answer your questions, but we are not going to restrict this time if there are lots of questions. You can feel free to leave but it may beneficial for you to hear other people’s questions and problems they have.

We are often asked about Track Changes, automatic cross-referencing and cover pages. It’s impossible to answer all questions in a short space but we can develop further courses once we have a good bank of questions from you.

Don’t miss out

Reserve your place now and will share the conference link with you in the joining instructions in good time.

Once registered you will have access to a recording of the training course.

What Our Customers Think

Like most lawyers, we are pretty self-sufficient when it comes to Microsoft Word, but we spotted an opportunity to develop our brand further and update our document assets.

Bluebird have been dealing with our document processing for a while but I hadn’t realised that they could save us so much time when pulling together the simpler tasks in Word documents. Leanne prepared a training session for the team and also created a video of the session and a handout for us to refer to. While the team still send the more complex stuff to Bluebird to take care of, they can manage the more minor tasks in our documents, keeping them clean and free of formatting issues. It has saved us hours of time that we would ordinarily write off, and the team is getting on with the chargeable work instead.

Winslows