iListen

[Ed. note: This is the first post from Shaw Cunningham, a 2L at Baylor Law School. I'm always excited to hear from other Mac-using law students who have found techniques I haven't yet tried.]

Why Type When You Can Talk?

Some people can type like the wind, but I simply can’t. I didn’t take typing in high school, nor did I ever work in a profession that required me to type on a daily basis. But you will see some people in your law school classes, if you haven’t already, who can literally type fast enough to dictate the class. While I believe that typing out every word the professors say in class is better training for a transcriptionist than an attorney, I must admit that the skill does come in quite handy in at least two areas of law school – brief / memo writing and exam taking.

This is where dictation software comes in extremely handy. Instead of typing your case briefs, simply dictate them. Aside from possibly making your homework of bit faster, there are some other less than obvious advantages to this approach. First, you’re not only learning to think like an attorney, but also to talk like one. This is a skill that can only be acquired by practice. For example, how many of us really speak the way we write? Second, by having dictated your brief instead of typing, you have processed the information in a manner which will help you to look more professional in the event you are called upon in class to discuss the case. While the effect of this on your grade maybe less direct, it does go a long way toward gaining the respect of your professors.

The best, and perhaps only, software for dictation on the Mac is iListen. The program is a Universal Binary, which means that it runs quicker on Intel Macs. Depending on the version of the program that you get, it comes with a nice headset microphone – essential for getting the most out of your software. Installing the software, like all other things Mac, is a piece of cake, and beyond that you will need to invest a mere ten minutes for the software to “learn” your voice. The cool thing is that the more use the software, the better it gets. It continually learns your speech as you correct little mistakes that it makes. You can even have the program learn to recognize different speakers; for example, if you are in a situation where you share a Mac with a spouse.

Features

Continuous Speech Recognition – You don’t need to pause between words, just speak at your natural speed.
Speech Navigation – This software can be used to control other programs. You can use your voice to push buttons, move the mouse, and change the active window. (Okay, I have never actually seen the mouse move, but I can accomplish many things with my voice that would otherwise require me to use the mouse.)
Direct Dictation – You can dictate, edit, and format text in any Mac OS application. Other dictation software forces you to first dictate into a dictation window, and then copy and paste text into the program where you want the text. Listen allows you to skip this time-wasting step.
Large Vocabulary – The software has an active vocabulary of over thirty thousand words. In also has a “background lexicon” of 300,000 words. This is not, however, a limitation. You can easily “teach” this software legalese such as: appellant, pro rata, and voir dire.
Expandable – Other languages can be added to the software. Currently that includes German, Italian, Spanish, and British English. (British English is not really an “other language”, but I did go to school in France with a guy from Dover, England whose English accent was so difficult for me to understand that I had to ask him to speak French.)
Apple Script Compatible – There is a built-in script editor which means the you can create your own commands. Most people probably do not take advantage of this very powerful feature.
Transcription – If you have a digital voice recorder, or even an iPod that you can record to, then you can record dictations on such a device and let the software transcribe the dictation later from the recorded file. This is a very handy feature.

This software is available from MacSpeech for $179 and is worth every penny. I have dictated case briefs, my last Moot Court brief, memos, emails, and of course, this blog post.