Lessons from Aristotle

Greek philosopher Aristotle's principles of knowledge categorisation, combined with an effective behaviour-tracking, would make for a very powerful initiative indeed, according to Ali Shahidi, Alschuler Grossman LLP

Aristotle and other classical Greek philosophers believed that appropriateness of any form of knowledge depends on the purpose or the telos it serves. The purpose of a theoretical discipline is the pursuit of truth through contemplation; its telos is the attainment of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of the productive sciences is to make something; their telos is the production of some artifact. The practical disciplines are those sciences which deal with ethical and political life; their telos is practical wisdom and knowledge.

One can apply the principles of Aristotle’s knowledge categorisation to analyse and evaluate knowledge management (KM) behaviours in the practice of law. Short of ‘pursuing answers to our KM puzzle through contemplation’, one can also use behaviour tracking and usage tracking techniques used by Amazon and Google, to analyse KM and exchange behaviour, and feed that information back into the ‘knowledge systems’ to enhance relevancies of search techniques and improve the knowledge-transfer efficiencies.

Traditional KM formula is typically and mathematically defined as: KM = Search x Data x People. Advanced KM formula that is much more applicable to the practice as well as the business of law is defined by KM = Search (Context) x Data (Application) x People (People). This may be an oversimplification of KM principles, but in practice, knowledge-worker behaviour and return on knowledge investment fits within this simple formula.

A typical lawyer who is looking for knowledge goes through an average of eight knowledge-exchange experiences (or searches) per day related to a real case. From the eight, two are premium searches through paid value-added content providers, such as Lexis and West, two are typically non-premium general searches through sources such as Google, two are truly intellectual-capital knowledge searches on a firm’s internal KM systems and, finally, two are human knowledge-exchange sessions with an expert (typically with a senior lawyer who has related case expertise).

Law firms spend an average of one per cent of their revenues on premium value-added content – Lexis, West, and so on, also known as computerised legal research (CLR). Although cost recovery reduces that figure by 50 per cent, a typical law firm spends much more on this CLR value-added content than any other form of knowledge-exchange experience. Non-premium search (Google, et al) is free and internal KM systems cost less than one-tenth of CLR content expenses.

There is general consensus that the value of a real, human knowledge-exchange session is significantly higher than any other form of knowledge-exchange experience in the practice of law. Furthermore, internal KM systems, as defined by the KM = Search (Context) x Data (Application) x People (People) formula, have the next best return on investment and value. It is rather puzzling why there is no relevant cost to value proposition when it comes to paying for premium legal content.

There are differing opinions on what is the most accurate method of measuring return on investment in a KM system. Vendors and consultants attempt to present such metrics in terms of improved realisation rates and net time savings. What is clear from the KM = Search (Context) x Data (Application) x People (People) formula is that there are significantly improved returns when the search is done in the relevant context across multiple applications. The people element presents the potential for a much more effective and powerful KM system. Opinions also vary on the success of social networks in law firms. Lawyers are not known to spend much time commenting (or using wikis) to enhance the quality of internal intellectual capital and internal knowledge, but if they ever do so, a KM system would be of significant more value. That is why premium legal content providers can justify charging a high premium for what they refer to as ‘additional treatment’ of case law.

The ideal would be to have our lawyers provide their own ‘additional treatment’, or as Aristotle would put it, ‘their contemplation’, into their intellectual capital so that we can preserve the institutional intelligence and share it in the right context. Combine this ideal scenario with a behaviour-tracking system and it would make for a very powerful KM initiative indeed.