What Does the Future Hold for Legal Knowledge Management?

“What would you do if you were given a $10 million budget to advance your law firm’s business goals, drive efficiency and increase profitability?”

We posed this question to chief knowledge officers, directors of research, and a variety of other KM and research professionals at some of the top law firms in the world. As law firms respond to clients’ pressures to increase efficiency, many are relying heavily on KM departments to help them identify, access, and leverage the information their attorneys need to do their best work in the fastest and lowest-cost way possible. We wanted to find out from the experts themselves what their greatest challenges are, how they’re leveraging today’s technology to accomplish those goals, and how the technology of the future might empower them to do more.

Almost without exception, their answers highlighted two key challenges facing KM departments at law firms: 1) effectively collecting information from disparate channels and sources; and 2) connecting data points and people in the firm. To explore this rich topic more fully, I am excited to moderate a Jan. 23 webinar, “The Future of Legal Knowledge Management,” in which I’ll talk with Shabeer Khan, Director of Research Services at Morrison & Foerster, and Patrick Dundas, KM associate at Shulte Roth & Zabel, about how to leverage automation and artificial intelligence to:

• Turn implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge lawyers can use;
• Automate data collection and build it into attorney workflows to reduce reliance on manual data entry and maintenance; and
• Structure your firm’s KM systems to make the data, once collected, usable and actionable.

We’ve reached the stage where technology is changing the practice of law, and we’re encouraged to see so many firms finding ways to leverage it in new and increasingly innovative ways. We are at an inflection point that requires the entire legal ecosystem to take part in a bigger conversation around not only the tools and technologies law firms need to produce the best outcomes for their clients, but also where we need to align our goals as an industry. That requires a diverse set of voices, and thus we hope you will join us to take part in this important conversation.

To register for the Jan. 23 webinar, click here.