"Annabel and her team at DTFL give us great flexibility of secretarial resource and always provide a speedy, accurate and efficient response to our requirements; they are an indispensible part of our team enabling us to deliver with their help the rapid and professional service required by our commercial clients."
Commercial Property Lawyers, Oxfordshire
Digital Transcription for Lawyers (DTFL) was established by Annabel Hurdman in 2003, specifically to offer digital transcription services to the legal profession.
Annabel has more than 30 years’ experience as a legal secretary covering crime, family, child law, personal injury, human rights, court martial, company commercial, conveyancing, marine and probate.
In 2003, Annabel saw the potential for a fast and accurate transcription service for law firms that capitalised on the ease of sharing digital files. She developed DTFL as a flexible and user-friendly legal typing and transcription service that produces work in pre-agreed, bespoke client templates.
DTFL uses a pool of experienced UK legal secretaries. All are personally vetted and tested by Annabel and meet the rigorous standards for quality, accuracy and expertise for which DTFL has become renowned. Having a readily available pool of tried and tested ‘standby’ secretaries ensures that, however much work comes in, there are always enough secretaries to meet the demand. It is one of the reasons why the company is able to guarantee that all work received by 1.00pm will be transcribed and returned the same day.
Since DTFL was established, the company has expanded rapidly, largely through word of mouth and enquiries through its website. However, Annabel has made great efforts to ensure that the company retains the personal touch which has proved popular with clients and provided the foundation for its success to date.
The DTFL secretaries pride themselves not only on their speed, but also on the accuracy of their transcriptions, which are monitored and checked by the company’s experienced quality control staff. All work is treated as confidential and is transcribed using your own templates, or templates created for you by DTFL.
The company’s working hours – 7.30am to 6.30pm – enable it to guarantee industry-leading turnaround times – all work received by 1.00pm is guaranteed to be transcribed and returned the same day, while that sent after 1.00pm will be returned the following morning, although most work sent after 1.00pm is still returned the same day. The company also offers a weekend service for urgent work by prior arrangement.
If you use DTFL regularly, Court headings, names and addresses need only to be dictated once – as you would to your own secretary. DTFL uses online checks to ensure correct addresses and/or company names, including completing missing or incomplete postcodes.
The responsiveness, reliability and flexibility of DTFL has helped to make it one of the fastest growing companies in its market. It provides an invaluable, cost effective legal typing and digital transcription service across the legal spectrum, not only for lawyers, but also for others in the legal field, such as Barristers’ Chambers, the Police, the Probation Service, the Crown Prosecution Service, expert witnesses, Independent Social Workers and private detectives. Whether you are a sole practitioner, a small, medium or large firm, DTFL can help – the service is available on demand and comes at a fraction of the cost of secretarial staff.
