KM in the legal profession at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Knowledge Management Review, Jan/Feb 2006

Michael Hertz, founder of ProBono.net and Lawhelp.org and recently appointed chief knowledge officer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, comments on the challenges facing KM in the legal profession.

What are the prominent issues for lawyers involved with KM?

KM lawyers at the firm face a number of exciting challenges. Among them is how to effectively meet the strong demands for various KM services.

A typical KM lawyer might be asked to capture and develop legal know how, distribute current awareness about legal and client developments, create training, answer enquiries and participate in client facing initiatives.

The KM lawyer, especially the most senior ones, must also be able to engage the senior lawyers in their groups, set and balance priorities and then manage the delivery of these services in the most effective and efficient way. A second prominent issue is how to demonstrate the value of the services that are delivered.

In the future, KM lawyers will increasingly be asked to articulate the value of different KM services to the performance of their practice groups and to set priorities based on different levels of value.

We need to begin equipping our KM professionals with the skills to lead these discussions. In short, a new profile is emerging for the KM lawyers - one that requires a stronger skills set related to strategic planning, business development, and project and business management.

How do lawyers in KM prove their worth to the firm, when they can't charge billable hours?

KM lawyers can and do charge their billable hours. KM at the firm is increasingly client-focused. When the KM team provides clients with service, we charge that time. In addition, we are looking at a number of initiatives that also encourage all lawyers including KM lawyers - to track their lion-billable KM time. By doing so, we can better assess the KM investment by the firm and value that time during the appraisal process.

How do you get busy lawyers to contribute best practice stories and ideas?

All of the usual means. For example, our KM lawyers and staff embedded in the practice groups actively harvest these stories. We conduct after-action-reviews. We are building tools that will allow easy submission of knowledge to our systems. We're also experimenting with blogs as tools for knowledge sharing among thfferent communities of practice within the firm.

How do you address the problem of working across languages?

There are two primary ways. First, we build systems like Athena, our new know-how system, to meet the needs of many languages. As we move forward and build new systems, we intend to continue to build systems that address the different cultures and languages within the firm. Second, we try very hard (and I believe successfully) to staff our firm-wide KM initiatives with international teams.

What lessons have you learned in your career that might prove enlightening to others?

Two things: First, people are the key. At the firm, we have an extensive network of KM professionals. These people reside in the many different offices and practice groups within the firm. They are close to the practice and the clients being served by the local practices. Making sure that this network is motivated, focused, effective and well supported is paramount.

Second, most busy lawyers will commit heartily only to non-billable tasks that they believe are valued by the firm and will benefit their careers. In the United States, one of the breakthroughs in the adoption of pro bono work within big law firms came when those firms started treating the pro bono hours like any other client hours. When the lawyers saw pro bono hours truly treated the same as other client work at appraisal and bonus time, their behavior changed. The same shift has to occur in KM. Removing disincentives to sharing behavior is critical.

ProBono.net and Lawhelp.org

Launched in 1998, ProBono.net is a nonprofit, website-led organization, designed to facilitate collaboration among the various parts of the public interest legal community in the US. Currently, the website has the involvement of nearly 25,000 lawyers, and 98 of the top 100 US firms.

Lawhelp.org was launched in 2000 as a portal that aggregates and publishes information to help low-income consumers find legal assistance. The website was created to centralize the ideas of lawyers working in similar areas in order for them to collaborate more effectively. It now garners over 2 million annual hits.

Contact

Michael Hertz

www.freshfields.co.uk