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Written by Norman Clark
Published: 20 November 2013
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potted small tree on top of a stack of books

I just completed a very interesting conference call with some colleagues from the International Bar Association. We will be presenting a session on knowledge management at the 7th Annual Law Firm Management Conference in Moscow on 29 November 2013.

I was very interested in the many aspects of knowledge management that my colleagues and I discussed during our call:

 

Each of these topics is a point that many law firms completely overlook, misunderstand, or -- worst of all -- misapply:

 

The most important point of all is the knowledge management is not a piece of software, nor should it be an additional burden on the delivery of legal services. The software is merely a tool to make the process faster and more accurate. If the underlying policies and practices by which a firm manages its intellectual capital are flawed, the best that technology can do is to automate a flawed process, with a risk that it could actually make things worse in the long term. Moreover, every knowledge management procedure should be integrated smoothly into the work processes of the firm -- including the intellectual processes by which lawyers serve clients -- adding value rather than adding work to already busy lawyers.

Norman Clark