All firms should consider having a knowledge management (KM) function, whether your firm has a full library with a dedicated array of research staff or just one excited individual looking to take on the challenge. KM offers an extremely flexible approach that any firm can use to reap the benefits of capturing, organizing and sharing the knowledge that its attorneys and other employees create.

Taking a Nontraditional Approach to KM

Legal work is inherently knowledge work. Lawyers establish their worth by accruing the legal knowledge and experience that enable them to apply ever-shifting laws, rules, and regulations across a broad array of complex fact patterns. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, where clients demand ever-greater value from their lawyers, the goal is to make that knowledge work as efficient, effective, and profitable as possible.

Traditionally, law firms used KM specifically to expedite lawyers' work by maintaining a repository of legal documents for future reference. But KM can be defined and used much more broadly than that. In all its guises, KM leverages individual experience to promote innovation and continuous process improvement, bolstering the quality, consistency, and efficiency of every kind of repeatable task.

Whereas traditional KM builds on a typical hierarchical law firm structure to collect and disperse information across intranets and other knowledge resources, KM can also work—with adjustments—in firms with more distributed authority.

One example of a nontraditional approach to KM comes from Tilly Gray, partner and director of transaction services at Canadian law firm Cassels Brock. As Gray explains, “We started by trying to implement traditional KM, with embedded researchers and knowledge managers in different departments and have evolved our approach over time.” Now, she says, she works on “KM-adjacent” tasks, from “creating process improvements across the entire firm and eliminating waste to effectuating change and driving innovation.”

Start Capturing and Using Your Firm's Internal Knowledge

Any firm, regardless of its size, sophistication or structure, can improve its use of internal knowledge with a few key steps:

1. Rethink knowledge in the information age. Today, there's so much information available that no one person can stay on top of all of it. According to a report from McKinsey, interaction workers spend nearly 20 percent of their time “looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks.” KM streamlines this search for information by essentially crowdsourcing information within the firm. Would you rather your associates waste valuable time searching for inferior information on Google, or turn to a vetted and trusted internal resource? Which option is best for the firm's overall business?

With all forms of KM, it's critical that everyone contributes to and draws from the accumulated knowledge base. Gray enhanced Cassels Brock's KM repository by encouraging lawyers to share their work product in gamified “knowledge drives.” Her team created an architected system that was designed to allow attorneys to extract value through both searching and browsing, meeting the needs of those with different information-gathering styles. The system also boosted research assets like memoranda and sample precedents so that they would float to the top of enterprise search results. This resulted in rapid cross-pollination between different departments, triggering a virtuous cycle of information-sharing.

2. Focus on your firm's culture in designing an approach to KM. Culture is vitally important for building KM. It was the lean, entrepreneurial culture at Cassels Brock, Gray learned, that mandated change from the firm's early efforts at traditional KM. There, she says, “We realized that it didn't make sense for us to have a dedicated KM resource embedded in each department when we so often needed to shift our focus, bringing all hands on deck with other projects.”

Match your own KM structure and roles to your firm's culture. If your firm has a traditional hierarchical structure, the standard KM approach is probably a good fit; that's what it was designed for. If your firm is more agile and lean, focus instead on rapidly implementing a few KM assets and creating small wins to build momentum. Concentrate or disperse KM responsibilities based on the specific needs of your firm.

3. Don't limit KM to documents and legal knowledge. “Precedents aren't specific to lawyers,” Gray notes. “They're useful to anyone who does anything more than once.” KM principles can be applied to improve processes and enhance efficiency for legal operations, HR practices, financial management, client information, matter management, and more.

In Gray's view, any firm that values its intellectual capital can benefit from clearly delineating responsibility for the maintenance of that asset through some form of KM. “Knowledge and expertise capture is process improvement,” she says. “You can't have one without the other—and it's all knowledge management.”

Abhijat Saraswat is the Director of International Business at Litera Microsystems. In his role, he has helped some of the most prestigious and largest international firms gain access to legal solutions that help their lawyers create higher quality work, faster. He is also the host of the popular Fringe Legal podcast.