Dictation for lawyers
Rule 1.6 in the voice era
Lawyers have dictated privileged content for a century — but where a secretary once transcribed it down the hall, modern dictation routes it through software, and your ethical duties follow it there. Informational, not legal advice.
Three rules that reach your dictation software
Rule 1.6(c): prevent disclosure
ABA Model Rule 1.6(c): a lawyer "shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client." Dictated client content is squarely that information — whether it ends up in a memo or a vendor's audio pipeline.
Rule 1.1 Comment 8: know your tech
The technology-competence comment requires keeping abreast of "the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology." Knowing whether your dictation tool processes audio locally or in a cloud — and what the vendor's data-use terms say — is exactly this duty in miniature.
Opinion 477R: due diligence on vendors
ABA Formal Opinion 477R holds that using cloud technology is permissible — with due diligence on the provider and security efforts proportionate to the sensitivity of the information. Cloud dictation of privileged content sits at the sensitive end of that scale: you'd want the vendor's retention, training-data, and subprocessor terms in writing before the first client name is spoken.
Shrink the analysis by shrinking the disclosure
On-device ends the vendor question
If speech recognition and cleanup run entirely on your own machine, no third party receives client information at all — there is no provider to diligence for the dictation step, because there is no disclosure. That's Blabb's architecture: both models ship in the installer and run on your PC. Blabb reaches the network only to check your licence — once verified, dictation keeps working offline for 30 days before it has to check again.
Artifacts under your control
Dictation history stays on your machine, encrypted with keys tied to your Windows account. Retention is yours to set — don't save history at all for matters where no local record should persist, or 1 day, 1 week (the default), 1 month, or forever — and one click deletes your history, saved words and logs. Client files never acquire a shadow copy in someone else's cloud.
Works where legal IT locks down
Firm and client environments often mean Citrix or RDP sessions with clipboard redirection disabled. Blabb runs on your local machine and types key-by-key into the focused window, so dictation works inside those sessions too. The one exception is a window running as administrator: Windows blocks synthetic input there, for every tool. How that works.
"uh dear ms alvarez following our call we'll file the motion to compel by friday and we expect a hearing date within three weeks"
Dear Ms. Alvarez, following our call, we will file the motion to compel by Friday. We expect a hearing date within 3 weeks.
A client update, dictated between calls — cleaned into a formal register without adding a word of argument you didn't make.
Dictate like it's privileged. Because it is.
Two weeks free, and your audio and transcripts never leave your machine. If your dictation is full of terms of art, the Legal edition adds the legal dictionary on a separate USD $9.99 plan — "voir dire", not "voir dyre", first try.
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