An international approach to knowledge management

An effective knowledge-management strategy on a local level may seem feasible to most firms, but extending it to multiple offices across an international marketplace is a very different proposition. By Aileen Johnson, head of professional development systems, Ashurst

A key part of an international law firm’s business strategy will be the adoption of a ‘one firm’ approach that promotes a distinctive firm identity in a competitive international marketplace. A one-firm approach means that externally, clients can expect to receive the same quality and service regardless of location. Internally, a one-firm approach offers efficiencies in terms of process and management.

Adopting an international approach to knowledge management (KM) to support an international business strategy is a huge challenge for any law firm. Specific aspects of the challenge for a KM function in supporting an international business strategy are likely to be:

How to promote KM in jurisdictions where such functions are relatively unknown;
How to meet the needs of local offices in terms of language, regulatory requirements, cultural preferences etc, while maintaining a consistent approach;
How to synthesise knowledge rather than overload lawyers.

How to develop a single IT platform for KM

Selling or promoting KM in a local office may in many respects be as difficult as starting up a completely new KM function from scratch.

In the past ten years, law firms have become more comfortable seeing themselves as knowledge-based organisations. Far from being hostile to the idea of KM, partners in local offices may embrace KM as a concept.

The real obstacle to overcome is therefore more likely to be selling KM as something that can work in that particular jurisdiction. One help will be lawyers returning from secondment from an office with an established KM function. They may now regard such a function as essential for the future of their home office.

Using a successful function from elsewhere in the firm (probably the main office or ‘hub’ office) as a tried and tested model will illustrate what can be achieved. Helping local offices tackle the management issues surrounding setting up a new function will be the key to getting them on board. An established central infrastructure at the hub, with the capacity and experience to support a new function, will remove much of the headache of starting up.

Once a central function has been established in one office, it should be possible to draw together some threads to develop a blueprint for establishing KM functions in other offices. This blueprint can then be revised as lessons are learnt each time a new function is established. The blueprint should be less about prescribing what must happen and more about following a logical procedure to identify and meet local needs. So, for example, once the need for a KM function has been established, the next steps may be to:

Meet with the local managing partner to establish the goals and priorities for the KM function. Priorities might include, for example, keeping lawyers up-to-date, drafting precedents and briefing notes, and delivering training;
Meet with local lawyers to carry out a knowledge audit. One key area to focus on will be to ascertain what know-how lawyers rely on at the moment. Even where there is no formal KM function, there will be know-how somewhere – the challenge may be to identify and root it out.

Questions to ask might include:

What do lawyers use as starting points when drafting documents for clients?
What do lawyers do with completed documents used on particular transactions?
How do lawyers currently keep up-to-date?

At this point it will be possible to identify any obvious ‘gaps’ in current systems or content. Further questions to address will include:

Are there any major documents or clauses that need to be drafted? These are likely to include simple powers of attorney and boilerplate clauses. The firm’s engagement letter and standard terms of business for that office are also a good place to start.

Once the above have been established, resources will need to be allocated for recruitment. All except the most basic of functions will require a professional support lawyer (PSL) with at least five years’ post-qualification experience. It’s tempting to skimp on secretarial and administrative support. If you do this, though, you will find your highly-qualified PSL becoming bogged down in administrative tasks rather than using their particular expertise in drafting much needed documents or delivering valuable training. Finding the right person to fit the role is important. He/she must not only be capable of drafting key documents but must also be able to command the respect of lawyers. An ability to market the function internally along with a good deal of initiative and a willingness to take on managerial tasks, are also important key characteristics.

Once the personnel are recruited, they can, with assistance from the central support team, develop the necessary processes for whatever their specific KM goals are in terms of collecting, drafting, organising and publicising know-how, delivering training etc.

Quality content
Motivating lawyers to buy into the KM system is the key to its success. Any system is only as good as its content and maintaining quality contributions is vital. You will need to develop a system to capture and evaluate valuable content from lawyers working on deals; to make sure you harness all quality know-how available; and also to ensure that existing know-how is updated so that it remains at the cutting edge. You may want to consider publicising details of lawyers’ individual contributions internally, and giving monthly and/or annual awards for the best contributions in an area. In addition, contributions to training and know-how can form part of an annual review process, with lawyers receiving a detailed critique and score for their endeavours over the year. In some firms, contributions above a certain level count for bonus purposes. This not only motivates lawyers to share their knowledge but also emphasises the firm’s commitment to KM at the highest level.

The nuts and bolts
Organising the explicit knowledge (documents etc) is key. Where local offices practise both home and local law, the choice of language of the documents themselves will be left to the local office. However, all documents will need to be classified according to the same classification structure. Disorganised know-how collections mean lawyers will not be able to find what they need and the function will quickly lose credibility. A simple classification structure is likely to fit all offices in terms of much of their know-how. For example, in terms of explicit knowledge, adopting a system of categorisation in broad document types (boilerplate clauses, standard documents, briefing notes, external marketing publications) is likely to ‘fit’ across all offices. Using one standard method of classification will mean that all documents will be searchable from one point and that lawyers will be able to find comparable documents from other jurisdictions should they choose to.

However, once know-how collections become more extensive, further categorisation will be necessary. Developing, or more likely buying in, a firm-wide thesaurus (to include local language terms) earlier rather than later will bring huge benefits to the firm. If the thesaurus is adopted firm-wide (extending beyond KM) then it can ultimately be used to categorise all internal information across the firm, which will also be searchable from an intranet. If the adoption of a firm-wide thesaurus is unrealistic in the short term, it is advisable to adopt KM terms only.

Keep an eye on style
Developing a uniform style for documents across the whole firm is important. Ensuring all documents have the same look and feel in terms of typeface, spacing, headings and terminology will mean that documents can be cut, pasted and merged with ease. Crucially, the same uniform look will enhance the firm’s brand in the marketplace. This will mean reaching broad agreement on very basic and admittedly tedious issues such as how defined terms should appear in documents, how many spaces there should be after a full stop and how numbers are expressed. Involvement from local offices at an early stage is crucial so that local needs can be accommodated within the style. Trying to enforce and police an unpopular or unworkable style in any office will be a thankless if not impossible task. Developing a broad, simple, workable style and setting it out in a guide is painful in the short term, but easier than having to agree a style every time a new document is drafted.

Developing a single KM intranet
Having drafted content and categorised some know-how, the next step will be the development of an IT interface for the lawyer. Making the IT interface user- and lawyer-friendly is important.

At Ashurst, we have developed a series of home pages, which feature a bookshelf system with books representing particular categories of documents. This means that lawyers instantly feel ‘at home’ with the material since it is presented in a familiar rather than abstract form. Think about developing a system of home pages for each office, with design input from lawyers. This will be their starting point for browsing and searching for know-how and it is important that home pages have attractive, user-friendly interfaces with easy-to-access information that is relevant to a particular practice area or office.

However, keep the same basic structure for home pages across all offices. Having the same basic structure means that when lawyers move between offices, they can quickly orientate themselves around the browsable and searchable information. It also means that new home pages can be rolled out and maintained relatively easily. Indeed, showing staff in a local office a prototype for their own home page at an early stage can be a motivatingfactor for the initial success of a KM function, as it encourages lawyers to contribute content.

An easy-to-use search system is crucial to finding know-how. Lawyers in firms with large know-how collections may be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available. If documents have been properly categorised using basic information (title, summary, author, document type, key words etc) then most of the hard work in terms of developing search and browse functions has already been done. For firms that have an extensive know-how collection, search options will need to be relatively sophisticated. Consider developing an advanced search option so that lawyers are not inundated with information every time they search for a document. At a later stage you may want to develop a more sophisticated results page, which allows further drilling down or searching once the initial results are presented.

Keeping it international
Once a local office has established a knowledge-management function, then it is important to set in place mechanisms that allow the office to feed its experience back to other offices for the benefit of the whole firm. Strategic and planning meetings should include PSLs from all offices to make sure that an international approach is being maintained when key decisions are taken. Input from local office PSLs at regular training sessions on topics of firm-wide KM interest are normally insightful. Smaller offices outside the hub are often better placed to try out novel ways of knowledge sharing (through communities of practice, discussion forums etc) and their experience is often valuable.

It’s never too small
In offices that cannot justify a dedicated all-singing, all-dancing KM function, it’s always possible to ‘get them on board’ by providing them with some of the infrastructure – for example, an intranet home page with just one or two core documents and a set of useful internet links. A more comprehensive function may come along later, which can be fitted into this basic structure. A link to an external KM provider may also be extremely useful for lawyers and justifiable on a cost basis.

And it’s never too late
Even for firms that have not already adopted an international approach to KM, there are some solutions to deal with situations where ‘independent’ know-how systems have grown up across different offices. For finding documents and other information in separate databases, it is now possible to buy tailor-made software, which can search for material in different databases and present the results in a cohesive format. So, as far as end users are concerned, they can expect to use just one search rather than multiple searches on different databases. n

Aileen Johnson is head of professional development systems at Ashurst. She can be contacted at aileen.johnson@ashurst.com

Box 1: Five top tips from knowledge-management experience at Ashurst

Ensure that you adopt one firm-wide underlying structure, but accommodate as many local preferences as possible in terms of the look and feel of documents and systems;
Start early in local offices – waiting and doing nothing will mean each local office develops its own system, which will be costly and problematic inthe long run;
Don’t wait for things to be perfect before launching or publishing them – documents and systems should be good enough to inspire confidence, but they will evolve and be improved over time;
Don’t underestimate the importance of peer-recognition in stimulating contributions to know-how – lawyers like to be recognised for their competence and expertise;
Set aside regular time for PSLs to meet face-to-face either annually or bi-annually – it’s important for local offices to keep in touch with the hub office and also for PSLs from different local offices to exchange ideas.