Opinion: You can lead a horse to water…

Don’t wait for it to drink. Stick a hosepipe down its throat! (‘Push’ KM)

By Neil Cameron, Neil Cameron Consulting Group

Lawyers are lazy. Well, that isn’t strictly true. They work themselves very hard, and for long hours, but usually on the things in relation to which they will be rewarded. They will avoid doing certain things that they feel are non-productive – ‘good housekeeping’ activities such as matter inception, money laundering or billing. They are also so busy ‘getting it done’ that they simply forget to do other things that might actually help them deliver their service to clients more speedily, more accurately and more consistently.

Many years ago I learned that most lawyers either won’t think of undertaking legal research or looking for useful know-how – or if they do, will only spend a very short period of time looking for it. Then, when they do spend this little time looking for know-how they employ almost no powers of lateral thinking at all.

So let’s not sit with baited breath waiting anxiously for them to come to our know-how repositories as and when they feel like it (or when they are bored, or desperate for help). Let’s proffer it. This will work, and work well, only if the know-how is useful and relevant, which it can be.

Naturally, this will only work if the issue and the set of potential know-how are matched for relevance, and there are two ways of doing this:

Classification matching, by reference to a taxonomy – or manual indexing;
Content matching, using pattern-matching technology – or pure IT.

Either of these will function, but both together will function best. Let’s examine both options in turn.

Classification matching involves – firstly – making sure that the content of the know-how repository is properly indexed against a ‘real-world’ taxonomy; by which I mean a taxonomy that the fee-earners would immediately recognise as one reflecting the work of the firm, and their place within it.

The second necessary ingredient is the classification of the matter, or even better, the stage of the matter that the lawyer is currently working on. This is much more difficult, as it relies on lawyers accurately classifying the work they do on matter inception – and correcting and refining it during the life of the matter. The difficulty is that they won’t have time or won’t see the benefit.

It is at this point that ‘push’ KM will help; because it can actually deliver instant gratification to the lawyer who can be bothered to spend that additional effort required.

How? Well, the best place to deliver this is in a special ‘Proffered Know-How Window’ in users’ matter-Centric portal, which can automatically be populated with relevance-ranked know-how (standard forms, precedents, articles, cases etc.) The material should be directly relevant to the task in hand – without even having to think about looking for it. Even better, there is a quality assurance feedback loop involved in this process. The more accurately the user classifies the matter; the more useful the material being proffered.

There is also an in-built lateral thinking advantage in that a properly classified system – especially one that has separate taxonomies for matter, subject and transaction type – will provide access to know-how lawyers would probably not have searched for, even if they had bothered. It should find useful material on licensing from the world of franchising even if the current issue relates to IP.

The other way to achieve ‘push’ KM is ‘content matching’ – automatically (using software tools) matching the contents of your repository against the material that the lawyer is actually producing or reviewing in the normal course of working on the client matter. They continually review the documents and e-mails that the lawyer is working with, seeking content match with your knowledge-management system. The bad news is that the system has nothing to offer when a matter starts. There is no content against which to match. But the good news is that the more material the lawyers produce, the more accurate and useful the proffered know-how will be.

Once the system is working properly you can even extend it to clients and contacts. Having filled out an online profile of their interests, you will be able to ‘push’ them highly relevant nuggets of know-how for business development purposes.

In the real world I would build a system that combines the two mechanisms. A combined result set is likely to be better than any one. Provide this to lawyers and – I believe – you will see their little faces light up…

Neil Cameron is the founder of Neil Cameron Consulting Group and sits on the Managing Partner editorial board. He can be contacted at neil@neilcameronconsulting.com