Bridging the gap

A truly integrated approach means extending the scope of knowledge management in law firms; reinventing the role of knowledge professionals and promoting the KM brand internally and externally so that it is genuinely embedded into the firm's DNA. By Joanna Goodman

Law firms are focusing more sharply on embedding knowledge management (KM) into every part of the business, integrating it into their structure, strategy and culture. The KM function has long been recognised as an essential resource, supporting the work of fee earners with timely research, information, technical expertise and know-how. After all, law firms attract and retain their clients by leveraging the individual and collective knowledge, experience and expertise of their partners and associates. Nowadays, however, KM professionals work closely with other business-support functions to improve processes and efficiency and enhance the services to existing and potential clients, thereby strengthening the firm’s position in an increasingly competitive legal-services marketplace.

“The KM function used to be focused on managing legal knowledge; we’re now increasingly responsible for managing business knowledge and information too,” says Justin Harness, international know-how manager at Lovells. The firm’s integrated portal, InterLovells, which is currently being rolled out across the business, is linked to a comprehensive know-how system that gives lawyers and employees global access to the firm’s knowledge resources. The portal provides client, practice area, business support, office and other community views of content across the global practice. But as Harness explains, cutting-edge technology is worthwhile only if people are aware of where and how they can access the resources they need. He therefore devotes a significant amount of time and energy to promoting the KM function around the business, making internal presentations to different practice groups and support functions on the benefits that an integrated approach to KM bring to the firm and its people in terms of improving access to information, know-how and expertise and, most importantly, increasing collaboration between colleagues in different parts of the business with the ultimate aim of improving client service and supporting innovation, business development and profitability.

Technology has brought KM and IT departments together in an effort to ensure that a firm’s knowledge resources are valid, user friendly and aligned with its operational and strategic needs. It is also the starting point for integrating the KM function into all parts of the business. At Ashurst, KM and IT professionals work together to ensure that Arachne, the firm’s award-winning intranet, provides desktop access to both legal and business knowledge. “Primarily, it was designed as a platform for our internal know-how, but now it goes so much further, with links to our training, business development and HR pages,” says Patricia Wade, director and deputy head of professional development. “It’s an excellent platform for firm-wide communication and collaboration. As the firm grows and covers different practice areas and jurisdictions, this element of cohesion could easily be lost.”

More than technology
Genuine KM integration means developing genuine understanding between the different groups of experts that work in law firms. Although these include business development, finance, marketing, IT and HR professionals, KM is the only business-support function where the majority of professionals are also qualified lawyers. “Because KM professionals tend to be experienced fee earners, they are well positioned to bridge the gap between lawyers and other support services,” explains Melanie Farquharson, who was KM director at Simmons & Simmons before moving into consultancy at 3Kites early this year. She emphasises that this requires more than communication skills; it is not always straightforward to strike the right balance between the different perspectives of IT and marketing and the lawyers whose work they support. “KM lawyers also have to understand enough of the technical side of those functions to bridge the gap and that can be challenging,” she adds.

At Ashurst, knowledge professionals work closely with other support functions, particularly IT, business development and HR to make sure that everyone in the firm is focused on meeting clients’ needs. A key part of the role of KM lawyers is to explain the legal side of the business to the other support departments. “People who are experts in technology or marketing can often benefit from understanding client demands and expectations, how the law works and how fee-earning teams work together. Our professional development lawyers are the first port of call to explain that to them,” says Wade.

Integrating KM with other business-support functions has expanded the role of knowledge professionals from dealing principally with legal documents and information; they also need to be KM brand champions. “Part of the challenge is achieving a cultural shift,” says Harness. “Making people aware of the benefits of KM is a crucial part of engaging them in working with the KM department to improve processes and efficiency and enhance business development and profitability.” He explains that Lovells’ knowledge team comprises information professionals, technology, legal, architecture and knowledge-systems specialists. In January 2007, as part of the rollout of new global portal and know-how systems, the firm embarked on an intensive internal marketing campaign, which included presentations to many parts of the business as well as posters, placemats on trays in the staff restaurant and other supporting items to promote the launch of InterLovells and the KM function. The result has been rapid take-up and increased awareness of the benefits the KM function brings to the business generally. Furthermore, business development colleagues routinely consult Harness and his team for advice on using KM resources to win business.

Assisting business development
Firms are increasingly aligning their KM efforts with business development and client relationship management. Harness is involved in a significant amount of client-facing work, attending key client meetings and supporting business pitches. The fact that practice areas promote themselves internally on the portal also promotes cross-selling by building firm-wide awareness of Lovells’ overall range of services among fee earners and support professionals throughout the business.

Farquharson believes that KM needs to extend beyond know-how to ‘know-who’ – identifying the right people within the organisation to involve in particular pitches and projects. Expertise locators are relatively commonplace in industry, but as Farquharson explains, this concept can present difficulties for law firms, which routinely attract business on the basis of an individual lawyer’s reputation and experience. “Asking people to submit their own profiles has the potential to create inconsistencies, so it’s important to find scientific ways of tracking people’s involvement in particular types of work and determining their expertise,” she explains, adding that the popularity of lateral hires means that even in mid-sized firms, it’s important to ensure that lawyers are aware of each others’ specialisms.

KM’s traditional role of providing legal information and advice commonly includes running client seminars and producing guidance. Wade regularly presents at client events and her team produces bespoke training and information for clients, including ‘newsflash’ e-mail alerts tailored to specific clients covering new legislation, cases and other legal developments. She comments that although clients have come to expect these ‘extras’, they regularly generate business for the firm.

KM mergers
The KM function has therefore moved beyond technical research and client communication into pitches for new business. “Law firms tend to pitch on the basis of experience,” says Farquharson. “KM guides business development by applying previous learning – which may be legal precedent or business information, such as the time and resources required to undertake a similar piece of work – to the new situation.”

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has taken KM’s integration with business development a step further, having recently merged knowledge management and business development teams into a single knowledge and business development (KBD) department comprising a number of central teams and integrated KBD teams of both KM and BD professionals in the practice groups. Director of knowledge management, Julia Randell-Khan explains: “We have undertaken a major restructuring exercise designed to align our KM and BD services more closely with our business objectives with the dual purpose of maximising efficiency and driving client development.”

The new department, which also includes library and information services (LIS), works closely with the firm’s HR and finance departments, enabling partners to use financial data and other client information to manage key relationships, support business development and identify cross-selling opportunities.

The reorganisation of the KM function is clearly designed to embed KM further into the firm’s DNA. “As well as integrated KBD roles in each of our practice groups, our central teams provide KBD services for a number of core sector areas,” says Randell-Khan. “We also have dedicated teams for client initiatives and relationships as well as my team, which focuses on international business development across different geographical regions and applying KM and BD skills and best practice throughout the firm.”

Although the reorganisation was completed as recently as March this year, Randell-Khan is able to highlight some of the early benefits of an integrated KBD department. In addition to process and efficiency improvements as a result of combining a number of different systems, there are immediate gains in terms of CRM. “KM teams are often able to issue spot in terms of what the impact of new regulatory developments will be on a particular sector or group of clients,” she says. “Because KM works cohesively with business development, the department can quickly capitalise on these findings by producing client seminars or briefings or simply by picking up the phone and talking to clients. It enables us to work in a more focused way to support key client relationships.”

The role and profile of KM and BD professionals around the firm has also been transformed. “We’ve shifted a number of roles, including at a senior level, to ensure that we deliver high-value services to our clients,” says Randell-Khan. “It’s all about having the right people doing the right things.” She is currently prioritising a programme to develop the skills people need to fulfil their new roles to the best of their abilities and helping them align their performance goals and personal development plans with the new strategy. KBD staff are working closely with HR to refresh training and development programmes and encourage fee earners to develop and maintain KM and BD skills.

Professional development
As Wade’s job title indicates, KM at Ashhurst is closely linked to lawyers’ professional development. Wade and her team work with the firm’s HR department to promote firm-wide knowledge sharing by including it in internal recognition and reward systems. Lawyers’ contribution to know-how is tracked and each month prizes are awarded to the people who have contributed the most material to the know-how system. More significantly, know-how contribution is included in appraisal scores that affect bonuses and career progression within the firm. Wade explains that making people focus on know-how in this way underlines the strategic aim of making knowledge-sharing an integral part of the firm’s culture.

US-based firms are adopting a similar approach. As Jason Marty, global director of knowledge management at global firm Baker & McKenzie, which is headquartered in Chicago, explains, the governance of the firm links KM and professional development. “Our knowledge and professional development committee, which is a committee of partners, oversees both functions, although they’re managed separately,” he says. Baker & McKenzie’s KM function is also closely involved in performance management/talent management and professional development as well as supporting business development. “Our professional support lawyers (PSLs) take the lead on internal and external training opportunities, particularly in terms of legal expertise and black letter training,” adds Marty.

Baker & McKenzie’s global KM function, which is Marty’s responsibility, works closely with PSLs in the global practice groups and local and regional KM departments to form a firm-wide network of KM professionals, linked via the firm’s intranet. This matrix approach to KM integration helps to maximise and leverage the firm’s collective knowledge. At Lovells, Harness aims to develop an integrated international KM community that reaches beyond those directly involved in the KM function. To this end his team has recently launched a global internal newsletter, KM Focus, which currently has 150 subscribers from different parts of the firm.

The repositioning of KM at the heart of the business presents new challenges – particularly the fact that KM professionals are now expected to be multi-skilled. “We’ve reached the stage where firms have enormous and sometimes unrealistic expectations of KM people,” says Farquharson. “As well as being highly competent technical lawyers who draft documents, they need to be IT savvy and understand how to present information. They are also expected to be business savvy with the ability to work out the best way of using knowledge to benefit the firm and deliver its strategic objectives. That requires a very special combination of skills if a firm expects that all facets of the KM role are to be fulfilled by one individual.”

Integrated KM has therefore transformed the role of the KM lawyer into a demanding and fulfilling career choice – for the right person. These are dynamic career professionals capable of working with all the firm’s stakeholders. These days, moving into KM no longer means choosing to get out of the fast lane – in fact it can mean precisely the opposite.

Joanna Goodman is a freelance journalist and business writer specialising in corporate communications, knowledge management and information management. She can be contacted at joanna.goodman@btopenworld.com