- Reda Bennani - Consultant
Innovative legal
service Practices have been threatening the status quo of the traditional legal
profession. An overabundance of legal information and document management
systems have been taking advantage of the anticipated genesis of new-adopted
business models, that would change the practice and influence business leaders.
Trending IT practices and systems, have deployed their expertise to serve the
legal industry which is lacking far behind in adopting pure Resource Planning
solutions.
Law Firms have
jumped on the collaboration bandwagon using tools such as Microsoft SharePoint
to collaborate both on a firm and client-facing basis, but the recent study
from ILTA 2012 shows that only 24 % of law firms adopt these systems, which is
a weak number compared to the potential upside this tool can bring to the firm
bottom line. We all know that there are traditional and trending unorthodox
reasons for the lack of Knowledge sharing, here is my take on that:
- The fear that a legal document
accessible by everyone, which could be used by a non-specialist in a
non-collaborative way that increases risk management level.
- Confidentiality relationship
between the lawyers and the clients
- There is still a strong feeling for
lawyers that technology is not reliable , especially with the trending
Ssas solutions, that add security concerns to the equation.
- Legal opinion sharing can be
risky, and includes a high level of criticism.
- The knowledge management strategy
lacks ROI figures, which doesn’t encourage business decision-takers in
adopting the different solutions.
Successful
business and IT strategies need metrics system to demonstrate their future long
term benefit to the firm , such as:
- Measurement efforts need a well-established
management team to lead the Revolution!
- Search for already-existing
metrics systems used within the firm, to allow easy adoption by knowledge
management professionals.
- Speak the same language.
The
reluctance of most lawyers to adopt Knowledge management solution
won’t change until IT and management teams come up with a well-thought
plan that would establish KM as part of the expected responsibilities lawyers
will have within the modern law firm!