Weaving KM into the strategic fabric of today's law firm: 'Five keys to success

Law firms in the twenty-first century look, feel, and run very differently from those of earlier times. While professionalism and ardent dedication to the advancement of client interests are still the primary purposes for which law firms exist, success requires a myriad of additional tools that were not even in the tool belts of decades past - things like legal project management, alternative fee arrangements, and knowledge management (KM), to name but a few. Law firms are at varying levels of adoption of these tools. A common question that arises is: How do we actually make these things work, and become a part of the strategy that our firm is advancing? While the focus of this article is specifically on the integration of KM into a firm's strategic fabric, the keys to success in achieving that are quite applicable to attempts to weave any significant initiative into a firm's strategy.

I am not a Chief Knowledge Management Officer or an IT professional. I am the Chief Operating Officer for a firm with 750 lawyers and public policy advisors in 19 offices across seven states in the south central United States and the District of Columbia. I have come to that position only recently, after working at the firm in various practitioner and management capacities for two decades. I was both a practicing labour and employment lawyer and a practice group chair at the time KM emerged within the legal field, and I have been in firm management at practice group, department, and board levels as KM has moved from a traditional content generation role to a total practice management/consultancy and product development role within my firm. It is also not without import that the firm has been on the Forbes list of 'Best Places to Work' for six straight years, and it places a genuine emphasis on culture as a key part of our strategic planning. It is through that lens that we have been successful in placing emphasis on KM throughout the firm and in determining how to advance our strategic plan in part, at least, with the advancement of our KM function.

While there are certainly many elements that must come together to ensure the successful integration of an initiative or new way of doing things into firm strategy, there are five keys that have emerged as central to that success within the KM context.

1. Understand the psychology of the lawyer of 2015

It is no mystery that the economic downturn of 2008 and beyond had a profound impact on the legal profession. It has also had a profound impact on the individual lawyers who work within that profession. Understanding, appreciating, and embracing the mindset of today's lawyers is an essential part of convincing them that KM can and should be a part of their practices. I summarise that mindset by a comparison to the more historical mindset. While, prior to 2008, law firms and lawyers evolved (meaning that they did change, but changed very slowly - almost imperceptibly at times), client demands for efficiency and better value now require revolution. Lawyers are required to adapt and change quickly. The rules seem to change regularly, and reticence is dangerous.

The nomenclature has changed, and value is the benchmark. Instead of work/life balance, lawyers now face the challenge of work/work/life balance. What does that mean? It means that we have added an additional layer to work - the layer that now requires lawyers to learn the business of law and to spend time honing not only their professional craft but the logistics of providing that craft more efficiently. We combine those challenges with a stressful external world where many lawyers are in the 'sandwich generation', and the related challenges that come with working with three or four generations under one roof at a firm. And, finally, lawyers of today are bombarded with information 24/7, and 'solutions' to every problem in the form of e-mails and the internet.

Why is this key to the integration of KM? Because of this psychology, lawyers crave some measure of simplicity, comfort, and help to satisfy increasing client demands. It is becoming more and more obvious to them that they cannot do it alone. This provides an opening for KM. However, what KM cannot do is force lawyers to embrace complicated tools and processes without adequate explanation of how they help - KM cannot force revolution, but must provide respite and the weapons to aid it.

Another factor at play is the knowledge of today's lawyers and law firms that investment in research and development is necessary. Firms must spend time and money to develop tools and processes that work for their practices and clients, and KM is an area of necessary investment. However, with lawyers facing increasing pressure to bill hours and produce revenue, asking them to invest non-billable hours in the effort is tough. In our firm, we established a programme to give lawyers working credit for time spent assisting the development of KM functions. The programme, originally called 'KM Dollars' and now called the 'Venture Fund', encourages investment and allows the firm to budget for progress each year. Without some kind of effort to compensate for investment, it is unlikely to occur.

2. Have a seat at the table

To become integrated into firm strategy, KM (or any other similar firm initiative) must have a seat at the proverbial and literal tables. This means that KM must be represented by either direct KM professionals, such as the Chief Knowledge Management Officer, or a champion or proxy at firm meetings where strategy is discussed, created, adopted, and advanced. If direct KM representation is not possible for whatever reason, the champion should be knowledgeable about both the technical and operational aspects of KM, and should also be aware of and sensitive to challenges that could be raised by other members of firm management.

In my firm, KM is routinely present at strategic planning meetings, board meetings where essential KM functions are discussed and progress is voted upon, and department and practice group meetings where overall firm strategy is distilled to the practitioner level. KM professionals are also asked to interface regularly with lawyers at their desks and in performing day-to-day tasks to see how tools are being used and what could make those lawyers' lives easier. So, suffice to say that KM 'sits' at many tables and with many constituencies regularly. Without that constant, multi-level interface, it seems nearly impossible for KM to determine how it can build bridges to help the firm meet its goals. Further, as firm management and lawyers alike see and hear from KM, they understand how it can help them address client needs more efficiently, and buy-in grows.

3. Focus on client value

While client value is not a new concept, the level of focus upon it is still fairly new and firms are still trying to understand what it really means. The tricky part is that value to one client is not the same as value to another. We typically say that client value encompasses four intertwined concepts: lower cost, higher predictability, better outcomes, and more transparency. But does lower cost mean lower legal spend per year, lower cost per matter, lower cost per hour, or lower cost per task or phase? Does higher predictability mean predictability of spend, predictability of outcome, or predictability of course of the matter? Does better outcome mean less cost, a pure 'victory' (however that is defined), or the predictability mentioned already? Finally, does transparency mean a clear picture of costs as they are incurred, a full view of the matter's processing and work within a firm, or just an increased lawyer/client dialogue?

Client value is defined and determined by the client, and lawyers want to understand what it means to their clients. Once they know what their clients perceive as value, they then want to understand how they can provide that value without sacrificing quality of professional service. That is, of course, where KM can come in. If the KM professionals within a firm strive to understand what clients want and how lawyers are falling short, they can help bridge that gap. If lawyers understand that KM can help them provide value, and not just that KM is the "new way of doing things" or some "fancy new technology that we have spent a lot of money on", the dialogue changes and interest rises.

Not unlike many firms, our firm has a client survey programme through which we seek to learn more about client satisfaction and preferences, and how our service has aligned with those. While it would be fairly simple to share that feedback only with directly involved lawyers, we share it with various administrative groups (including KM) who can benefit from hearing the lessons learned, and we share it with all of our lawyers fairly regularly. We have seen that the KM function routinely takes the lessons from those surveys and works to provide tools to our lawyers or products for our clients that meet expressed needs. When that happens, there is no doubt that KM is helping deliver value.

4. Do not forget the importance of support staff and other administrative departments

Even once something like KM receives a position of prominence within a firm's stated strategic planning, it has not really become woven into the strategic fabric until adoption and execution are a reality. While the role of the legal assistant has also morphed, not only since 2008 but radically over the last few decades, it is still true that assistants are integral to lawyers' practices and can be invaluable in lawyer conversion to a new way of doing things.

Take, for instance, the transition of most firms to electronic timekeeping from old-fashioned timesheets. In many situations, legal assistants were critical to adoption - they trained the lawyers, encouraged use, and found and passed along shortcuts. Slowly but surely, the transition happened. While we may no longer have the luxury of moving slowly but surely, those assistants can play a key role in the adoption and use of KM, and making them champions of KM efforts will pay huge dividends.

Similarly, other administrative departments can play an important role in KM integration. If legal project management, firm libraries, timekeeping, costing, and marketing are all working in tandem with KM - and in fact are integrated by it - all functions are more likely to be used, and used correctly. Moreover, those working in those functions, as well as those working in human resources, billing, new matter intake, and other administrative departments with whom the lawyers regularly interface, can help inform the KM function. They know what information lawyers routinely ask for and how they need to use it.

5. Identify and help remove obstacles

To be an embraced part of strategy, it is important that leaders of any initiative both understand that mindset and also proactively seek to make things easier. In the KM context, that concept is at the very core of what KM seeks to do. However, it is also quite possible that the tools and processes developed by KM are useful and quite impressive but, for whatever reason, they are not used by lawyers as originally envisioned. That is usually because, rightly or wrongly, they are perceived as too complicated or a waste of time, or the lawyer simply is not even aware of the tool or process. In other words, even when wonderful tools exist, there are often obstacles to their use. Those obstacles will be different in every firm and maybe even in every group within the firm, but they do exist and can work to make even the most impressive KM advancement moot.

Another important concept to remember in this regard is that perception is reality. Even if a tool or process is deemed entirely perfect by KM, if users do not see it that way and thus do not use it, it is not perfect. If users see obstacles or problems, it is hard to talk them out of those. A fix or removal of the obstacle is typically required.

A final point with regard to tip number 5 is that communication is king. Communication is essential to determine what KM tools are needed and desired: it is needed when rolling out those tools to make sure lawyers both know about them and how to use them; and it is needed when addressing lack of use or the resolution of problems. What does communication mean? Does it mean a blast e-mail - one size fits all - to all constituencies within the firm? It does not if integration into firm strategy and success is the goal. The average US business person sends/receives over 125 e-mails in a day, and many lawyers send/receive more than that. Many of those e-mails contain time-sensitive client communications and must be the lawyer's priority. So, if the only mechanism used to convey an initiative's message is e-mail, one can expect that the message may be lost in a sea of 'more important' communications. To be effective, communication must also include personal meetings and calls, training that is made available by more than one means, and the regular delivery of information at practice group and department meetings. We have found that communication regarding KM by lawyers themselves to their own practice groups is one of the most effective means because it evidences buy-in by a similarly-situated practitioner.

There will always be some level of resistance to change. However, because of the state of the legal industry and the pressures facing those working within it, KM is uniquely positioned to advance at a speed that perhaps we have not seen before. By understanding lawyer psychology in 2015, asking for a seat at the table, focusing on client value, seeking assistance from other administrative departments and support personnel, and focusing on obstacle removal, a KM team can ensure that its initiatives move forward and become a part of the very strategic fabric of their firm.