Stating the obvious

As I sat down to write this column I set myself a personal objective to mention nothing about the economy (it appears that I have failed just 20 words in). Not that I wish to stick my head in the sand – quite the opposite in fact. It’s just that I have a somewhat old-fashioned view that us editors get but one opportunity to talk about something that has captured our imagination in a completely opinionated and unrestrained manner: the editor’s letter. And I don’t much relish the prospect of repeating what has been published in every single magazine and newspaper across the world: doom and gloom is not what this magazine is about.
Having spoken with an interesting cross-section of knowledge managers, professional support lawyers and management consultants both in Europe and the US, it would seem that while know-how departments are by no means complacent, the credit crunch has not yet hit them as hard as everyone thought it would. Of course, law firms are feeling the pinch and the work that was positively spilling over and running lawyers ragged during the boom of the past few years is now much harder to come by – unless, perhaps, you’re running an insolvency practice. But for knowledge and information services departments it still appears that there is plenty to be getting on with.
It would be foolhardy to suggest that law firms were not scrutinising every single department’s performance – both support functions and even those directly concerned with fee earning – but, for the time being anyway, many of the people who have been in touch with the magazine are putting a positive slant on current circumstances. For the savvy KM team it’s not about rolling over and waiting for redundancy consultations; it’s about demonstrating the value that their expertise and processes can add to the firm, not just in the way it delivers its services, but in the impact on the bottom line.
Then there is the opportunity that the current marketplace provides for innovation. As the manager of an operational team which could be viewed as an overhead, I have been forced to take a long hard look at the product that we are putting out to market. Topic validation processes are tougher, every outsourced cost has to be justified, justified, then justified some more, and gone are the days when we can publish ‘nice to have’ information for law firms riding on the crest of the financial boom. But it has given a welcome facelift to many of our products and forced us to ensure that everything we provide is ‘must have’ and 101 per cent relevant to those audiences we service.
For KM, this is also a time to look at existing procedures, tighten up processes, get on top of training and – most importantly – ensure that the team is prepared not only to weather the current crisis, but also to take full advantage once the global economy stabilises. Which it will.
More on how firms are dealing with such challenges will be featured in next issue’s cover story. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy this issue. As always, if you have any experiences that you wish to share, or would like to see a certain subject explored by KIM Legal, we would love to hear from you.

Kate Clifton
Head of Editorial

Features

Case study: Mills & Reeve This article is for subscribers only
Duncan Ogilvy, KM partner at Mills & Reeves believes that the application and sharing of tacit knowledge that resides in the heads of individual lawyers is what truly differentiates the firm.

Case study: Norton Rose Group This article is for subscribers only
When burst water mains took out all power to Norton Rose Group’s London head office, it was careful disaster-recovery planning that saved the day. Malcolm Todd, head of systems delivery, explains how the firm evaluated its risk and set in place measures to safeguard its valuable information and documents – with a particular focus on electronic messaging.

Case study: Minter Ellison This article is for subscribers only
With the challenges wrought by financial, economic and climate change, along with loss of expertise when lawyers leave or retire, there has never been a time wh en collaboration to facilitate innovation has been so important. Simon Haigh, chief knowledge officer at Minter Ellison, charts the firm’s journey to a unified knowledge, technology and client-development strategy.

Cover feature: The international PSL This article is for subscribers only
Martin Navias, senior professional support lawyer at DLA Piper, discusses the functions and responsibilities of the international PSL, including how their work can add value to the business and differentiate the firm – from maintaining global brand values, to helping to create savings in both cost and time.

Regulars

Opinion: Managing e-mail Free
Just organising the flow and sorting of e-mail isn’t enough. Electronic communication produces documents that must be managed just as paper documents are.

Q&A: Web 2.0 Free
A recent white paper released by Spada Research found considerable caution among the professions when it came to embracing Web 2.0 and other ‘new’ technologies. Management concerns, such as security threats and potential time wasting were some of the key themes. Continuing the debate of the use of Web 2.0 in the law firm environment Gavin Ingham Brooke, managing director at Spada, discusses why many are still lagging behind other organisations in their take-up of such tools and practices.

Thought leader Free
When I moved from corporate life to become a free agent some years ago, I was struck by the prevalence of creative networks of people who work together in interesting permutations without being bound by an employer/employee relationship.