Dictation typing
Typing dictation for barristers,
without the queue.
For decades, getting dictation typed meant a typing service or a late night at the keyboard. Clerk& is the third option: speak into your phone, and your words come back in moments as a finished document (fee note, attendance note or letter) in your own style, for the clerk to review and send.
The options
Three ways to get a dictation typed
Every barrister solves this one of three ways. The difference is who does the typing — and how long you wait for it.
A typing service
TranScribe, My Secretary, Type Assist and others
- You send audio; a human typist sends back the document
- Pay per audio minute, plus VAT
- Work is done by a team, during office hours
- Formatting judgment from experienced legal typists
Typing it yourself
Or a legal secretary, when you have one
- The evening disappears into the fee notes
- The attendance note gets written on Friday, from memory
- No marginal cost — except the hours
- The backlog is the real price
Clerk&
Clerk& — speech-to-document
- Speak into your phone walking out of court
- A finished, filed document back in moments
- One flat plan; no per-minute meter running
- Counsel or clerk reviews — nothing sent without sign-off
Side by side
Clerk& and a typing service, compared
Typing services have served the Irish legal profession well for years — TranScribe, for one, since 2008. The comparison isn't about quality of people; it's about what the model can and can't do. Service figures are published rates as of July 2026.
Who does the typing
- Clerk&
- Automated — no human outside your practice hears the audio
- A typing service
- A team of human legal typists
What comes back
- Clerk&
- Your words as a finished fee note, attendance note or letter, in your own style, filed to the matter
- A typing service
- A typed document in the requested format
When it comes back
- Clerk&
- Moments after you stop recording, any hour, any day
- A typing service
- When it reaches the front of the queue; office hours are typically Mon–Fri
What it costs
- Clerk&
- €69/user/month flat + VAT (early-adopter rate; €99 standard), with 10 hours of recording included
- A typing service
- Published rates around €2.20–€2.40 per audio minute + VAT — an hour of dictation is roughly €132–€144 + VAT
Where the audio goes
- Clerk&
- Matter content processed and stored in the EEA; never used to train models; Article 28 DPA available
- A typing service
- To the service's typists — reputable Irish services operate under confidentiality terms and GDPR
Typing-service pricing shown is TranScribe's published rate card (transcribe.ie, July 2026): €2.20/min regular, €2.35/min app, €2.40/min case-management dictation, all plus VAT. Turnaround varies by service and workload; most services do not publish a guaranteed turnaround time.
The honest trade-off
What a typing service does well — and what no typist can do
A good legal typist brings real judgment: the formatting conventions, the spelling of the firms instructing you, an ear for what counsel meant. Some services guarantee a minimum accuracy rate, and pay-as-you-go suits a practice that dictates rarely. None of that is the weakness.
The weakness is structural. A human team works a queue, during office hours, at a per-minute price — so the fee note dictated on Friday evening is typed when the queue allows, and an hour of dictation costs more than a month of Clerk&. And every dictation is heard by someone outside your practice.
Clerk& keeps what mattered about the typist — the finished, properly formatted document, reviewed before it leaves — and removes the queue, the meter, and the third party. Counsel speaks; the words come back in moments, set out in your own style; the clerk reviews and dispatches.
Questions
Common questions
What does a typing service for barristers cost in Ireland?
Published rates run around €2.20–€2.40 per audio minute plus VAT (TranScribe's published pricing, July 2026), so an hour of dictation costs roughly €132–€144 plus VAT, every time. Clerk& is one flat per-user plan with ten hours of recording included each month.
How long does dictation typing take to come back?
A human typing service works a queue during office hours, and few services publish a guaranteed turnaround — same-day is usually a premium tier where it exists at all. Clerk& returns a finished, ready-to-review document in moments, whether you record at 4pm on a Tuesday or 11pm on a Sunday.
Is it confidential to send privileged dictation to a typing service?
Reputable Irish typing services operate under confidentiality terms and GDPR, and many have served the legal profession for years. The structural difference is that with a typing service, a person outside your practice hears every dictation. With Clerk&, processing is automated, all matter content stays in the EEA, your content never trains any model, and a signed Article 28 data-processing agreement is available.
A human typist applies judgment. Doesn't software lose that?
An experienced legal typist's judgment is real, and a good service guarantees its accuracy. Clerk& answers the same need differently: it sets out what counsel says in your own style (your headings, your fee-note layout, your references), and the document goes to counsel or the clerk for review before anything is sent. The judgment stays inside your practice; the typing doesn't.
Can Clerk& replace our typist or typing service?
For the dictation-to-document pipeline (fee notes, attendance notes, letters), yes: that is exactly what it does, and the clerk keeps the review-and-dispatch role. If you dictate only a few minutes a year, a pay-per-minute service may still suit; the 14-day free trial is the fair test — run a real week of work through it.
Speak to your clerk.
Free 14-day trial. No credit card. Five-minute setup. Whether you’re a sole practitioner or running a busy clerk’s room, Clerk& earns its keep on the first fee note.
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