Legal knowledge management is the driving force within law firms across the globe. The recent International Bar Association (IBA) conference in Washington DC attracted over 6000 legal professionals from around the world and Knowledge Management (KM) was prominently featured at the conference. In an article by Ron Friedmann of Fireman & Company in Bloomberg Law he indicates that legal knowledge management is on the rise as law firms realize that KM increases a lawyer’s productivity (Friedmann, 2016). This increase in productivity leads to delivering better value to clients. Ron Friedmann also indicates that The 2016 Citi-Hildebrandt client advisory expects “to see more focus on knowledge management” and The 2015 Altman Weil law firm report finds that 68% of firms with 250+ lawyers have incorporated KM initiatives to improve the firm’s efficiency (Friedmann, 2016).
In a Forbes 2014 article Micah Solomon indicates that creating true client loyalty is one of the most powerful and reliable ways to build a strategic, sustainable advantage for the law practice and that truly loyal clients are less price sensitive, and are less likely to be enticed by competitive entreaties from the firm across the street or across the continent (Solomon, 2014). Knowledge Management plays a key role in ensuring a high level of client support. KM staff operate smoothly between lawyers and a range of operational functions; ideally situated to increase intra-firm collaboration, communication, and understanding. Some KM programs have worked on operations for some time, but business conditions are now ripe for more extensive applications of KM to firm operations; arguably critical to keeping operational teams relevant and law firms profitable (Solomon, 2014).
Client support specifically focuses on dramatically improving the client experience. It is the expectation of all clients that legal professionals and law firms will provide high quality legal services and it’s that promise and demonstration of high quality legal services that are the intangibles that will set the firm apart. To read this full blog post access Globe Law and Business (The key ingredient for creating and sustaining law firm profitability). For more about Legal Knowledge Management see Knowledge Management in Law Firms – Expertise in Action and for a look at how other industries are leveraging KM pick up a copy of Knowledge Management in Practice. As always, I look forward to your comments and questions!
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