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Stenograph

Dragon Legal Alternative for Attorneys and Law Firms

Stenograph is a Dragon Legal alternative for attorneys who want legal dictation on a Mac, a Windows PC and a phone under one subscription, with the text arriving already formatted as a memo, letter or email. Dragon Legal remains a capable Windows product, and firms that already run it well have no reason to rip it out. Stenograph fits the lawyer who works across devices, wants a firm dictionary shared without IT, and would rather review a finished draft than clean up raw words.

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Try Stenograph on your own voice

Record up to 30 seconds, or pick a ready-made recording, and see clean, formatted text with your terms.

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Up to 10 words or names, separated by commas. Stenograph spells them exactly as you type them.

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Your clip is transcribed and formatted on our servers, and the audio is deleted right after processing. Your words are never used to train AI models.

Stenograph needs your microphone to record. Your browser asks once, and the microphone is on only while you speak.

  1. Uploading
  2. Recognizing speech
  3. Applying your terms
  4. Formatting

The one-time demo for this browser is complete. Choose a plan to keep dictating with your own terms in every app.

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Why attorneys look for a Dragon Legal alternative

Most lawyers who search for an alternative are not unhappy with the recognition itself. Dragon has been the reference for legal dictation for a long time, and its legal vocabulary is a real asset. The friction usually comes from everything around it.

  • The desktop edition, Dragon Legal v16, runs on Windows only. Nuance discontinued Dragon for Mac in 2018, so attorneys on a MacBook have no current desktop version.
  • Pricing is not published on the vendor site. Dragon Legal pages direct buyers to contact sales or a reseller, which makes a quick decision for a small firm harder.
  • Desktop, cloud and mobile are separate products. Dragon Legal Anywhere and Dragon Anywhere Mobile sync with each other, but a lawyer who wants the same vocabulary on a Windows desktop, a Mac laptop and a phone has to assemble the combination.
  • The output is your words as spoken. Dragon has strong voice commands and macros, yet structuring a memo, adding a greeting or tightening a paragraph is still work you do by command or by hand.
  • Sharing a vocabulary across a firm runs through an administration tool that someone has to own.

If none of these apply to you, stay where you are. If two or three do, the comparison below is worth five minutes.

Dragon Legal compared with Stenograph

Facts about Dragon come from the vendor's public product pages; Microsoft and Nuance do not publish prices there, so we do not quote one. Stenograph is our product, and Stenograph is not affiliated with Microsoft or Nuance.

Dragon Legal (Windows) v16Dragon Legal Anywhere with Dragon Anywhere MobileStenograph
Where it runs Windows 11 and Windows 10 desktop Cloud service with a mobile app for phone and tablet Mac and Windows desktop app, Chrome extension, iPhone and Android keyboard
Legal vocabulary Built in, trained on legal documents, custom word lists Shared customizations with the mobile app Legal vocabulary plus a personal and a shared firm dictionary
Citations Formats legal citations Same legal vocabulary family Common reporter, rule and statute formats, spelled as written in a brief
Formatting of the draft Voice commands and macros for clauses and steps Create, edit and format documents on the phone Memo, letter, email and list shapes applied as you speak, writing style per app
Recorded audio Transcribes audio files Not stated on the product page Upload recordings, transcript with timestamps and speaker labels, export to Word, PDF, TXT or SRT
Team administration Nuance Management Center for licenses and shared customizations Managed with the Anywhere service Admin console, shared dictionaries and styles, one invoice on Team and Enterprise
Price as published Contact sales or a reseller Contact sales or a reseller Solo 24 USD per month billed yearly, Team 149 USD per month billed yearly for up to five people
Attorney in a law office hallway, phone at his ear, dictating a reply between two calls

What you keep when you move from Dragon

Switching dictation tools sounds like retraining your whole working day. In practice most of the habits carry over, because the core gesture is the same: put the cursor where the text should go, speak, review.

  • You still dictate straight into Word, Outlook and your document management system, at the cursor, with nothing to paste.
  • Your vocabulary comes with you. Export the custom words you built in Dragon as a list and import them into your Stenograph dictionary, so client names, matter names, judges and defined terms are spelled the way you already set them.
  • Spoken punctuation and editing commands work, and "new paragraph", "delete the last sentence" and "replace plaintiff with claimant" do what they say.
  • Your recordings still become text. Dictations you recorded on a phone or a handheld recorder can be uploaded and transcribed with timestamps.

What changes for the better

The biggest difference is what lands on the page. Stenograph shapes the draft while you speak: a memo comes out with headings when you name them, an enumeration becomes a numbered list, an email to a client gets a greeting, paragraphs and a sign off. Filler words and false starts are removed. "More formal" and "make it shorter" rewrite the last passage without leaving the dictation. The same account works on the Mac at home, the Windows PC at the office and the phone after a hearing. See ai text formatting dictation and voice commands for dictation for the details.

How to switch from Dragon Legal in one afternoon

  1. 1

    Export your Dragon word list

    In Dragon, export your custom words and vocabulary to a text file. Firms that use the management tool can export the shared list once for everyone.

  2. 2

    Import it into Stenograph

    Create your account, open the dictionary and import the file. Add the names that matter this month: active clients, opposing counsel, the judge on your largest matter.

  3. 3

    Run both side by side for a week

    Keep Dragon installed and dictate your routine emails and file notes in Stenograph. Compare how much editing each draft needs before it goes out.

  4. 4

    Move the firm when the numbers agree

    If the drafts need less cleanup, move the rest of the team on the Team plan, share one firm dictionary and let each person keep their own additions.

When Dragon Legal is still the better choice

We would rather lose a sale than move a firm to the wrong tool. Dragon Legal is the better fit in a few clear cases.

  • You need to work fully offline on a single Windows PC. Stenograph processes speech on our servers, so it needs a connection.
  • Your firm has years of Dragon macros and voice commands that automate clause libraries and multistep workflows, and rebuilding them is not worth it.
  • You dictate on a PowerMic and your workflow depends on its programmable buttons.
  • Your IT team already manages Dragon licenses centrally and the setup works.

In every other case, especially for Mac users and for small firms without dedicated IT, Stenograph is the faster path to clean drafts.

What the Dragon Legal alternative costs

Stenograph publishes every price. Solo is 49 USD per month, or 24 USD per month billed yearly, for one attorney. Pro is 99 USD per month, or 49 USD billed yearly, with more transcription minutes for heavy dictation and recorded meetings. Team is 299 USD per month, or 149 USD billed yearly, for up to five people sharing a firm dictionary. Enterprise is 999 USD per month, or 499 USD billed yearly, for up to twenty people with SSO, SCIM and an audit log. Do the math with your own numbers: if one memo a week moves from forty minutes of typing to fifteen minutes of speaking and review, the yearly Solo plan pays for itself at almost any billing rate. All plan limits are on stenograph pricing.

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Questions attorneys ask before replacing Dragon

Is there a better alternative to Dragon for lawyers?

For lawyers who work on a Mac, across several devices, or in a small firm without IT staff, Stenograph is a strong alternative: legal vocabulary, a shared firm dictionary and drafts formatted as memos, letters and emails. For an offline Windows setup built on years of Dragon macros, Dragon Legal remains the better fit.

Does Dragon Legal work on a Mac?

No current desktop version runs on macOS. Nuance discontinued Dragon for Mac in 2018, and Dragon Legal v16 is a Windows 11 and Windows 10 product. Mac users either run Windows in a virtual machine or choose a tool with a native Mac app, such as Stenograph.

How much does Dragon Legal cost?

Microsoft and Nuance do not list a price on the Dragon Legal product page. Buyers are directed to contact sales or an authorized reseller, and reseller prices vary by edition, term and region. Stenograph lists its prices publicly, starting at 24 USD per month billed yearly.

Can I import my Dragon vocabulary into Stenograph?

Yes. Export your custom words from Dragon as a text list and import the file into your Stenograph dictionary. Every term in the list is then spelled exactly that way in later dictations, and on Team and Enterprise the list can be shared with the whole firm.

Is my client data safe with a cloud dictation tool?

Stenograph processes audio and then deletes it, never storing the recording. Text history is optional, your content is never used to train AI models, and data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Whether this meets your confidentiality duties is your firm's judgment; the full description is on dictation privacy.

Dictate your next client letter in Stenograph

Import your Dragon word list, press the hotkey in Word and speak the first paragraph. The draft arrives formatted and spelled the way your firm writes.

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