KM Competitive Advantage Matrix

One of the first projects I undertook here at Sheppard Mullin, was to develop a 'menu' of potential knowledge management projects that a department or practice in the firm could take interest in. Often times lawyers would ask 'What can my department do with knowledge management?' The menu, or KM Matrix, was designed to give the lawyers some starting points. I worked with Mark Keller, a consultant with a lot of experience in these projects, to help define the matrix and also attach a level of 'competitive advantage' to each project. While subjective, it would at least help guide them to projects that would potentially yield the greatest return.

Some KM initiatives have universal appeal, while others naturally lend themselves to benefit specific groups. This menu of KM options was designed to expose the world of possibilities within Knowledge Management. The idea was that we would identify projects of interest to a practice group, prioritize the various initiatives and build a KM Project Plan for the firm. The menu is not meant to be all-encompassing of every conceivable option within KM, but provide a starting point in the process.

I've attached the menu, but have omitted much of the detail as it's our IP. What's not included is more detailed descriptions of each project, highlighting the pros/cons, business issues addressed, level of attorney involvement, etc. I included the first few, so you could see what details we tried to include for the lawyers.

Mea Culpa

It's been almost a month since my last post. We've been extremely busy around here and sometimes my day job does actually get in the way of me being able to discuss new and interesting developments in our industry :)

That being said, there are several new projects underway here that I'd like to share.

1) We are in the final beta testing phase for our new custom built extranet tool. A lot has been made about the false hopes and promises of extranets. From first hand experience, the right extranet tool deployed in the right way can help create advantage for your firm and generate a LOT of new business.

2) MOVING FROM INTERACTION. This information was made public recently, but I thought I'd elaborate on it a bit here. InterAction is a fine product and has done a great job getting CRM into the minds of many people within legal and even into the hands of a few lawyers :) However, we felt that Aderant's direction aligned better with our business objectives for CRM. The tight integration with our accounting system and VERY CLEAN user interface were huge selling points for us. The product roadmap is well defined and as hard as it is to believe, we won't be sacficing any function points by going to Aderant's CRM package. In fact, they are providing very similar functionality to that of ReAction Server, as far as contacts being able to update their own information via the web. We'll have a lot more to talk about later this year when we anticipate being live on Aderant's CRM system.

Wish us luck!

New Google mapping tool

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Originally uploaded by tbaldwinusc.

While not a pure law firm technology tool, the new Google Mapping tool is just too amazing to pass up. The core technology behind this is based on a product called Keyhole, which Google recently purchased. Keyhole is basically Terraserver on steroids, it provides satellite images of the entire globe, the ability to 'fly' from one point to another, and the ability to drill down to very fine detail. As the site says, "you can fly through 12+ Terabytes of Earth imagery and data – spinning, rotating, tilting, and zooming. Think magic carpet ride".

This technology is available through Keyhole directly for a fee, but you can get access to a 'lite' version of it through Google Maps. Leisure travelers will enjoy being to 'see' exactly how a hotel is laid out, or how close it is to the ocean. For business use, many real estate lawyers will find this tool invaluable when making a personal visit to the site is not feasible, cost effectively or timely. To see an example of the Google Maps tool, take a look at the satellite image of Dodger Stadium.

ILTA Staffing Survey Results Now Available

As one of the author's of this survey, I'm proud to announce that the results have now been made available from ILTA's website. Mal Mead was the mastermind behind the rich and in-depth analysis that is provided. This was our first stab at a survey of this kind, so there will probably be some tweaks to it the next time, but overall we are very pleased with the results.

Fellow blogger Ron Friedmann conducted additional analysis of the results on his blog. One quote sticks out, "For anyone interested in the details of law firm IT operations, the survey is a must read."

Blogs to replace newsletters?

While I've tried to refrain from touting specific projects at my firm, this one I just couldn't resist. We finally made the plunge and spun up the first, of what should be many, blogs for the firm. As has been discussed before on Ron Friedmann's blog and Dennis Kennedy's blog, we felt it was time to take the next step in our marketing efforts and this seemed like the most logical choice.

Like many large law firms, we send out thousands of e-newsletters every month on behalf of various practice groups. Our greatest gains will come from an organic growth in readership, better search result ranking on Google, reduction of spam to our clients and a better delivery engine then e-mail. Also, because of the ease of use, getting posts on the site is much easier than in our previous newsletters incarnations. In less than a week of going live, the site has already had over 16,000 hits...Stay tuned, as we plan on having blogs setup for our labor, finance and technology groups.

Aderant (formerly CMS) enters the CRM space

In something that was probably long overdue, Aderant recently announced its intention to enter the 'FrontOffice' space with its first foray being CRM. While this can be viewed as a move to counter what Elite has long had available with its case management and Apex product, the timing is interesting with the recent Lexis acquisition of Interface Software. The product roadmap they've outlined in their release certainly is appealing, especially for those who are Aderant clients. When you factor in the luke-warm adoption CRM has received by lawyers, it's a risky move, but could be an industry shaker if Aderant can help shift CRM into the hands of lawyers.

Desktop search gains momentum

E-mail has become a most unwieldy tool. Much has been made about this in various blog postings, legal technology conferences and within the hallways of most law firms. Firms worry about e-mail retention and due to the popularity of e-mail, many firms find themselves exceeding Microsoft's long standing limit of 2GB per mailbox. More pressure is being put on lawyers to clean up their mailbox. But, part of the problem is that Outlook's built-in searching is very weak and makes it hard for lawyers to quickly find e-mails and then move them to folders outside of the Inbox, Sent/Deleted Items.

To address this glaring problem, Microsoft purchased a company called, Lookout Software, who built a really nice (free) plug-in for Outlook that makes searching a breeze. Most of us have heard of Google's desktop search product, you can download for free. In their salvo, Yahoo recently announced their partnership with X1, to provide a 'lite' version of their desktop search product for free.

Having evaluated all three, there is a real upside to these products and they will be greatly welcomed by your firm.

• Lookout's newest version makes it easy to deploy in large environments and while it lacks some of the slick features of X1, if you're on a tight budget, this will be a huge leap forward for your users.
• When I downloaded Google's product, it seemed very interested in wanting to 'monitor' my activity. While this feature could be disabled, I was weary of what Google's real intent was with their product. I uninstalled it after a couple days of using it.
• I did not evaluate the Yahoo branded X1 product, but their full featured version which is not free, at $79/user (retail) but also had the most functionality. They have very innovative technology which instantly begins to return search results with every letter you type. The system also has hit-highlighting and a preview pane. In addition to full-text search, you can quickly search on e-mail fields. X1 also seems to be moving towards other enterprise products as well.

With the evergrowing amount of e-mail, these tools will certainly become a necessity. I recently traveled to another office without my laptop and when confronted with life sans my desktop search tool, I felt almost crippled and went through a brief period of withdrawals. It's probably the next-most addictive thing to the Blackberry!

Project Management, why aren't more law firm IT departments doing it?

A while back I attended a webinar titled "How to Create a Successful Project Management Environment". The webinar was hosted by Sally Hatchett, the Director of Project Management for Bingham McCutchen. Project Management (PM) has been an effective tool for many years, and thankfully is now slowly making its way into law firm IT departments. It couldn't be coming any sooner, as PM has been a glaring hole in most law firm IT Departments. The need for PM is even more important as IT moves from 'plumbing' related projects, the level of sophistication rises and as with most firms the department is asked to juggle more projects without increasing staff.

The upcoming LegalTech NY Conference will hold another session on project management, sponsored by ILTA (formerly known as LawNet), as part of their Advanced CIO track. While the LegalTech conference sessions cost a few hundred dollars, ILTA members can attend this Advanced CIO track for free.

Extranets help separate firms, for now

It looks as though collaboration tools, such as extranets, are not only on the cusp of becoming an integral part of how law firms work with their clients, but also as a way to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

If you've ever looked at the 'pitches books' law firms put together for prospective clients, it's no wonder something like an extranet can help set them apart. Most often a law firm's proposal boasts of a blue-chip roster of clients, touts the pedigree of their lawyers, trumpets the many successful cases/deals won for their clients and talks about their commitment to excellent client service. Virtually every law firm still in business can tell similar tales to one another, especially larger full-service firms who typically compete with other full-service firms. There's very little that helps a law firm set themselves apart when employing this standard RFP response. To that end, I once heard a client tell a group of lawyers that something as basic as publishing their rates in a proposal would be considered avant-garde.

While some are impressed with such basic things, more and more corporate legal departments are raising their expectations of what their outside counsel offer. Just ask Laura Owen, Director of Worldwide Legal Services, at Cisco Systems. Her recent article The Tech Evolution: Change or Die highlights several key trends:

• Commoditize routine legal transactions
• Create consortia to share needed work
• Move your legal work to low cost firms located in other regions away from high cost centers
• Use technology, not lawyers, to perform legal work
• Move 80 percent of your fees to a non-billable hour basis

While her thoughts are progressive, it certainly will only be a matter of time before more and more consumers of legal services start to see the wisdom in her approach. This is especially true if her concept of consortium for shared legal work takes off. Can you imagine the buying power large companies like Cisco, Ford, 3-M, Dupont, etc. could exert if they were to band together for joint RFPs?

If you analyze her points in detail, most of them are addressed through collaboration tools and technology. Firms that are currently able to provide these tools set themselves apart, but if Ms. Owen has her way, it will only be a matter of time before we all have to answer the call to better client service.

Speaking of mergers...

Pretty soon, everything will either be owned by West or Lexis, with Lexis just announcing their buyout of Interface Software today. Forget 31 flavors, we'll be confronted with the question of 'Would you like chocolate or vanilla?' As a consumer, I have yet to see real benefit come from any of these recent acquisitions and truly question the value they bring to anyone other then the two parties involved. Perhaps Lexis will be able to offer more content to contacts in InterAction through their Company Dossier product and with Factiva moving from OneSource to Lexis later in 2005, Dossier will have even more to offer.

What do mergers really mean to the industry?

Is merger mania still alive and well? The recent UK/US merger creates one of the world's largest law firms with more than 2,700 lawyers. This merger came on the heels of the Piper-Gray Cary deal in October and got me thinking about how mergers affect those other then the lawyers.

In the legal technology vendor community, there has been mass consolidation over the last few years, which has mirrored the trend for law firms to consolidate and merge. The vendor consolidation, in my opinion, has yielded mixed results as far as the benefit to the law firms who purchases these products and services. One thing is for sure, there are fewer options then ever for several major product lines and a couple companies are bordering on a monopoly at the rate they are going.

While law firm mergers look great on paper and in the press, they invariably cut jobs, many in the IT arena. I know of several very talents CIOs that are out of work simply because they were the smaller of two firms merging.

While law firms and technology vendors can't worry about these issues, a by-product of mergers and consolidation is less choice and job opportunities.

Southern California Regional Event

On December 16th, ILTA is sponsoring an event on Intrusion detection and Wireless Networking Security. The meeting is being held at Manatt in West LA. For more information or to RSVP, please click here.

ILTA (formerly known as LawNet) Announces Dates for Their Annual Meeting

One of the most eagerly awaited announcements has come. ILTA just announced today the dates of their annual conference and in conjunction with that, the hotel hosting the event (Scottsdale JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa) is now accepting MEMBER reservations (no vendors yet). The conference, ILTA 2005: An Empowering Experience, will be held August 22 - 25, 2005.

If you're a Member, please consult the recent 'LawNet/ILTA News Briefs' e-mail sent by Randi Mayes for more information on making reservations.

If you're not a LawNet member, I would encourage you to check out their website. The organization is by far the largest for law firm IT professionals in the world and their annual conference is usually the talk of the industry.

More on knowledge repositories

In an earlier post, I talked about a webinar detailing the pros and cons of various storage/retrieval methods for knowledge. It got me thinking about it in more detail and as a result I wrote a brief article on the topic.

At the end of the day, we have a hard enough time getting lawyers to contribute/use any form of KM system, so why make it any harder than necessary?

Hummingbird loses three clients while others progress to rollout

While on the topic of DMS, I found this article in the UK magazine, LegalIT, very interesting. That along with numerous posts on various listserves, leads me to believe that Hummingbird is losing marketshare. While probably not all that surprising to most, this article is one of the first where firms openly talk about their problems with Hummingbird.