I’m a huge fan of knowledge management (KM). When you know stuff but don’t manage it well, you lose out on a huge asset that can be leveraged massively to the advantage of your firm.There are whole books on this stuff. But let me make a very quick point to illustrate the power of KM. Let’s apply it to contact management in the law firm marketing setting. Suppose you know one person at one client or potential client company. You have the possibility for only one interaction. Now, suppose I have one contact at one other organization. I have one possible interaction, too. We could each, potentially, make a sale or provide value to our own contacts. That’s a total of two potential contacts for the firm.
But what if you and I share our information? Now… I could contact my guy, or yours. You could contact your guy, or mine. And… we could potentially make an introduction of your guy to my guy. And, there’s also the possibility that all four of us could have a reason to work together. That’s six potential relationships that could prove to be valuable to the firm instead of two. And that’s when you apply KM principles to only two people with only one contact each! Imagine how much more powerful the results can be when multiplied over the span of an entire firm’s marketing efforts.
Yet… law firms are incredibly hesitant to adopt or thoughtfully implement any kind of KM program, whether for contact management, case management, marketing, recruiting or any other endeavor that involves the systematic collection and use of organizational information.
In other areas, law firms have been driven to adopt new technology by outside forces. The malpractice insurance industry provides discounts to firms that use modern conflicts prevention methods, including good IT tools, and so some firms have adopted those tools. By the mid 1990’s, clients were demanding that firms communicate with them by email, and so law firms — many reluctantly — began using email.
But Rees Morrison reports in a recent blog post that in-house lawyers and law departments are also reluctant to adopt KM processes. Whether through fear of exposure "lest they be criticized," or due to lack of time or failure to see the value of the process.
What’s that noise I just heard? Ah, yes. The tolling of the bell signaling the death of KM in the legal industry. Unless somebody comes up with another external impetus for law firms to adopt KM programs, I don’t see it happening. Mostly because KM chiefly provides benefits in efficiency, and under the billable hour model there’s no compelling reason to be efficient, as it eats into revenue. Maybe we can get plaintiff’s firms to lead the charge on this front, specifically as it applies to mass tort litigation and personal injury law. Those are two areas where data-driven systems could provide massive returns in terms of time saved and communications efficiency.
But at large law firms? Well, although, off the top of my head, I can think of five ways in which KM could be applied to improve marketing performance, I don’t see it happening soon. Or ever. But God bless the firm that decides it’s time to really get in there, make some serious changes and shake things up.
Stumble it!