How do law firms make sure that all their practitioners have access to as much relevant information as possible now that they are spread right across the globe? ALB talks to the people who make sure it happens
Today’s information society functions around buying and selling knowledge. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the modern day law firm where knowledge is disseminated, new talent is developed and trained and intellectual capital built on a daily basis. In managing a firms’ most vital resource information–knowledge management (KM) departments are becoming increasingly important. ALB investigates how three of Asia’s leading law firms’ KM departments operate, and the technologies they use to make this happen.
Nishith Desai Associates, INDIA
Mihir Parikh, head of KM, and Milind Mundankar, chief technology officer
Q. How is the firm’s KM department structured?
While we have several people involved in the department, the structure is purposefully kept fluid to utilise different skills required at different stages. I head strategy and conceptualisation and our IT director heads the implementation of technologies. Our HR director looks after the integration of work processes with KM processes and training. Plus, all associates are involved in the development and build up of knowledge base. We’ve established a program where every morning a senior associate briefs others in the firm on a complex project, practice sub-area or new regulation. In this way, the KM department helps extract essential knowledge gained by a team of lawyers and transfers it to another team working similar projects.
Q. How does the technology or software program assist the KM department?
We are in the process of installing iManage Worksite, a document management system, which integrates with our already-installed Elite 3E. iManage Worksite will provide the platform to provide a seamless access to various knowledge repositories across all of our offices as well as integration with work processes. When we adopted Elite 3E, we needed a more flexible and integrated system that could produce customised and sophisticated management reports. The firm had been successfully billing clients using a legacy system for the past 10 years and we were looking for a system that would centralise the time billing and accounting functions. Fee-earners have been delighted with the way it allows them to check details and enter their time remotely. Partners are finding that reports can be generated quickly, and that the software allows them to generate complex industry-wide and practice area reports. Overall, information technology assists us in many ways. It provides the platform for not only generating, acquiring, and organising knowledge within the firm, but also distributing and applying it from various resources. Some of these resources include general internal content–such as precedents, forms, practice statements, practice presentations, research articles–and external technical content, such as pending legislation, r egulations, judgments, case law and tax treaties.
Q: How can the KM department assist with cost-saving measures?
KM for us provides more strategic value than pure cost-savings. Law firms are pure knowledge enterprises. Through our approach to research and KM, we expect it to create intellectual assets that will help us develop more innovative products; build a learning organisation by tightly integrating individual and organizational mental models; and develop systems thinking to provide rational, systemic approach to client work.
Drew & Napier, SINGAPORE
Loh Hsiu Lien, head of KM and training
Q: How does the KM department organise information in the firm?
The KM team assists in developing, updating and maintaining Drew & Napier’s knowhow and information resources, such as the firm’s knowledge databases and library. We also manage the firm’s online legal systems. These documents are stored on customised databases and are retrievable through search engines. Where appropriate, these are supplemented by on-line resources from specialist know-how providers to cater to the requirements of niche practice groups.
Q: What role does technology play?
We’re careful to acquire and use only those technologies that meet our specific needs. Our experience has shown that knowledge within the firm is best captured and transferred using a variety of processes–some technology-oriented, others based on human interfacing and the rest falling within the spectrum in between.
Minter Ellison, HONG KONG
Kate Wholley, know-how manager
Q: How does the local team work with the firm’s external base?
Our Hong Kong know-how team provides on-the-ground support and information management strategy for the practice groups operating in our Hong Kong and Shanghai offices. However, the team is also integrated with our national team, which is located in our Australian offices. Together we function as an international team servicing the needs of lawyers across all our offices and generating value from the firm’s intellectual, and knowledgebased resources. This structure allows our offices outside Australia – including our Hong Kong, London and Shanghai offices – to capitalise on the economies of scale that already exist in our Australian offices and we can leverage off their information architecture and resources. It also facilitates knowledge sharing between all lawyers in our firm, which helps to drive value for us and our clients. It also allows us to meet our objective of providing the same information and KM services to lawyers and also clients, regardless of which office they are located in.
Q: How important is technology to the department?
First rate IT systems integrated between all of our international offices facilitate the retrieval and instantaneous transfer of information across borders. Research can be done in any office for any office.
Consistency in our information systems across the jurisdictions also makes access to information readily available in all locations. This makes our lawyers readily transportable to meet client needs, which is critical in today’s global marketplace. Our know-how team works closely with our IT team to find the best information solutions available for our lawyers to gain rapid access to our collective know-how. To this end, we have recently enhanced our internal information retrieval capability by implementing Interwoven ‘Search’, a sophisticated, user-friendly enterprise wide search engine that searches across multiple databases and work spaces. We believe this will maximise the speed at which people within the firm can access the information they require. ALB