ScanSoft's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7 Legal ($995) speech recognition solution for law firms and legal professionals has won the Law Office Computing Readers' Choice Award for "Best Speech Recognition Technology" for the second consecutive year.

ScanSoft said the goal of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal, which converts text into speech at up to 160 words per minute, is to reduce or eliminate the costs associated with manually creating documents and transcripts. The application is used to create contracts, citations, letters and transcripts by voice, and also enables hands-free interaction with practice management, legal research, e-mail and Web applications.

The latest version of the product expands its support for mobile dictation, a mainstay of the legal industry, allowing users to record speech using Microsoft Pocket PC devices and have documents automatically created the next time they sync to their PCs.