What are Insurance and Investigative Transcriptions?
Proving the innocence or guilt of someone in the field of law is always a tricky business. Not only is there so much jargon, difficult-sounding Latin words and the like, there’s also the fact that cases can devolve into basically sophistry sessions where whoever can twist the other party’s words the most wins. As such, the strength of your case will often depend not so much on your evidence but also on your lawyer’s eloquence and credentials.
However, this is not to say that evidence in law is useless and should not be prioritized as much as finding the greatest orator around the block to field against the other party’s lawyer. The power of evidence in court should not be underestimated. No matter how eloquent a lawyer can be, presenting what is essentially bogus, falsified evidence, or even too little evidence in court, is a surefire way to get a case benched and dismissed.
When it comes to the legal world, there is no other place where the importance of accurate evidence is as paramount as it is in investigative cases. For this reason, many legal practices usually ask for investigative transcriptions from transcription services.
Investigative transcriptions, simply put, are transcriptions of evidences gathered from investigations conducted either by law firms, detectives, or the authorities. The kinds of evidence can range from something as seemingly mundane as the fact that Mr. X forgot to pay back the $3.00 he owed Mr. Y, or that Ms. M was ripped off by Mr. N who sold him grossly overpriced bananas, to something more serious-sounding such as a phone call that proved Mr. A cheated in the local mayoral elections, or a recording of Mr. B confessing he murdered Mr. C.
In essence, whenever something or someone presents an evidence made into audio or video format which can be used in court, that audio or video can be given to transcription services to work on.
There are many types of transcriptions that fall under the banner of investigative transcriptions, some of them with cool-sounding names such as crime scene investigations (think CSI or Hawaii Five-0), medical investigations (Medical Investigation-type things), or forensic investigations (like those in Forensic Files). There are also the less awesome-sounding ones but are important nonetheless such as insurance investigations, property investigations, scientific investigations, and the like.
Out of all the examples mentioned above, insurance investigations deserve special mention for these are rather common in today’s world where everyone seems to have some kind of beef or dispute to settle with their insurance companies. Insurance investigations, as the name explains rather handily, are investigations about insurance claims. These investigations delve into the nitty-gritty facts of an insurance case, and as such gathers quite an enormous amount of data in various formats. These include insurance statements issued by one party or another, insurance and damage reports to show the insurance company that damage has been done to something, as well as agent summaries and file interviews.
In order to raise efficiency, legal firms make use of transcriptionists who offer different types of legal transcription services, to work on these kinds of files and data in order to present a transcript that is much easily reviewed than, say, hour-long private hearings or interviews. These transcripts can then be used to review pertinent facts and evidences, and can even replace audio and video recordings themselves when needed — although nothing quite beats auditory and visual data in court hearings.
Investigative transcriptions, like all legal transcriptions in general, must be as accurate as possible and as close to the source material as it can be so that no essential data is lost. Data in these types of investigations are very important, so much so that it is not an understatement to say that these cases hinge more on who can deliver the correct data at the right time, than getting a good lawyer who knows his way around the court (although this is still important). As such, consider hiring a quality legal transcription service that can provide you good quality transcripts at fast turnaround times with affordable rates.
