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TECH SUPPORT Sharing knowledge is power By leveraging existing KM resources, firms can deliver greater efficiency and reduced operating costs — as well as more effective lawyering. BY GERRY BLACKWE LL M anaging knowledge has become a ma- jor preoccupa- tion in most large and medium-size law firms, as it should. Tough economic times, stiffer competition, and con- tinuing client pressure to drive legal costs down will only make knowl- edge management more important. By leverag- ing existing knowledge resources, firms can de- liver greater efficiency and reduced operating costs — as well as more effective lawyering. But the challenges facing knowledge managers are growing as the amount of electronic data under management — not just more documents than ever, but also e-mail and even voice mes- sages and video — continues to mushroom out of control. The solution? There is no magic bullet, says Ted Tjaden, director of library and knowledge management at McMillan LLP. But Tjaden does have some ideas about effective law firm knowledge management. The burden of his message: make effective use of existing tools to manage knowledge better — document management systems, litigation support software, case management and e-discovery tools, intranets, and extra- nets. Perhaps more importantly, look closely at new tools com- ing along, especially smart search technology. Technology is not everything, of course. Training lawyers is also a huge part of what knowledge management is about, at least at McMillan, says Tjaden. How you structure the knowledge management function can be important too. McMillan is unique in having a combined director of library and knowledge management, and two prac- tising lawyers running the library. "What you'll find in other firms is that knowledge management departments are lawyers, and the library is librarians — and often the twain never shall meet," says Tjaden. The unusual approach at McMillan has created some "nice synergy," he says. "It's an oversimpli- fication, but knowledge management is generally about information in- side the firm, the library about information out- side the firm. What we can do is offer one-stop shopping. It's worked out quite well." A simple example: if the knowledge management department can't come up with a pleading a litigator needs from the firm's re- pository, a search is automat- ically done on outside resources. Other firms do the same, Tjaden hastens to point out, it's just that linkages between the two functions aren't as tight. Convergence has become a recurring theme in knowledge management, he adds, and not just convergence of library and KM functions. Also KM and marketing — to work on requests for proposals, for example — and KM and professional develop- ment to collaborate on training. "Boundaries are coming down." As much as Tjaden urges firms to make the most of existing tools, he concedes that gaps remain in his firm's technology arsenal, the same gaps as in most firms, in fact. Document management systems, such as the Interwoven software McMillan uses, do a terrific job of providing robust, secure repositories for documents, but lawyers complain about difficulty finding documents — or rather, finding the right documents. It's one area where McMillan and other firms that use KM seriously hope to improve. McMillan is considering two relatively new solutions for "smarter" searching of electronic repositories: Interwoven Uni- versal Search (IUS), an add-on to the firm's existing document management system, announced in 2007, and MindServer Legal, a stand-alone enterprise search tool from Recommind. Both boast advanced search technologies that use sophisticated mathematical and linguistic techniques to go beyond simple www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com FEBRU AR Y 2009 21 ILLUSTRATION: JOE WEISSMANN