Reality:
How much time a machine must go to justify its cost depends on how much the machine costs, how much your labor costs, and how much the machine is saving. If an automatic typewriter costs 25% of an operator's salary and increases output by a third, you're ahead of the game. You can pick up some excellent reconditioned equipment for a few thousand dollars and if you use it right you can significantly increase the productivity of a secretary whose salary and fringe costs are likely to be well into five figures. See my article "How Much Will an Automatic Typewriter Save?" For a free copy send a self-addressed envelope with postage for two ounces to me at 5 Hawke Lane, Rockville Centre, New York 11570.
Myth:
You should get ready for "word processing" by examining the documents that are coming into your typing facility to determine what kind of automatic typing equipment will best produce them. Reality: Later. First let's examine the documents to see if they could be designed in some better way. Could this dictated text have been in part prerecorded? Could this name and address have been captured as a by-product of a prior typing? Could this printed form have been tied into a tab grid? Could the format of this multi-indented, tri-columnar, single-double spaced intermix have been simplified? Could the document have been structured in a way that groups variables in one section and text without variables in another? Could it have been designed so that part of it could have been generated by selecting from among stored paragraphs? Unless documents are examined for better ways of structuring them initially your work will continue to come into your word processing facility in the same old way. Don't be like the pilot who announces that his plane is making excellent time, but that he's been going in the wrong direction. Myth:
If you can afford the extra cost it's better to have a television screen display on your automatic typewriter so you can see the text being worked on. Reality: There is more involved here than meets the eye. When you have a TV screen on your trypewriter instead of a roller or platen, the typing or "printing" part of the machine has to be designed as a separate unit. Some kinds of work become hard to do if the keyboard is separated from the printer. Think
how you'd prepare a manuscript cover, a printed form, an affidavit of service, an envelope, a return receipt post card, or a typed check on a television screen. Typewriters using TV displays are excellent tools for text editing applications because you are working with only one kind of paper stock in your printing unit. But when you are working with an intermix of different kinds of paper stock a stand-alone automatic typewriter that prints directly onto its roller may be more versatile. By measuring the quantity of output (lines proMyth: duced, etc.) you can judge the effectiveness of your word processing staff. Reality: You can measure only the quantitative aspects of your staff's productivity. The qualitative aspects can only be jUdged. Word processing jobs are an intermix of both quantitative and qualitative factors, and many of the qualitative ones are in no way reflected by measuring output. These include such abilities as the capacity to resolve ambiguous, illegible or unclear dictation, to make intelligent format decisions, to determine the correct variable information to be added onto prerecorded materials without having to be told, to select the correct paper stock when it has not been indicated, or even when it has been indicated incorrectly, to prepare the customary number of carbon copies even though no copies were called for, to know when to consult a dictionary, to be able to handle basic correspondence on one's own, etc. Above all, we need to have secretarial help that is capable of understanding how automatic typing equipment can be made to do all the jobs it's able to do, and how to design documents and encode magnetic media appropriately. What's really devastating is that the clock watching, line counting, time keeping efficiency experts with their quantity thinking, may in fact be screening out of the word processing environment the kind of quality support staff we most need in it. Myth: The one-Iawyer-one-secretary arrangement is ineffective and must be replaced. Reality: What's wrong with the one-Iawyer-one-secretary arrangement is that it's unthought about. Under some circumstances it may in fact be extremely effective. Where it is, it should be retained; where it's not, it shouid be replaced. But what's really important is that you ought to be thinking about continued on page 9
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Bernard Sternin is among "the best" as a systems analyst and consultant in the fields of word processing and automated typing, particularly as related to law office practice. He has probably pUblished more articles and lectures more times concerning these specialities than any other lawyer. Mr. Sternin has served in the American Bar Association as Chairman of the Committee on Word Processing and Automated Drafting in the Section on Economics of Law Practice, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on the Use of Modern Technology in the Section of Insurance, Negligence and Compensation Law, and on the Sub-committee on Equipment and Technology of the Committee on Economics of Law Office Management, in the Section of General Practice, and is on the council of the Section on Economics of Law Practice.
January 1982/Arkansas lawyer/S