selecting a knowledge management collection strategy

7/30/2019 Selecting a Knowledge Management Collection Strategy

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Knowledge Management: Whats Your Strategy for

Collecting and Cataloging Documents?

By Ron Friedmann, February 2004

This article was published in Capital Connection (by the Capital Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators)

ABSTRACT: Firms that want to re-use work product need to decide how they will capture and re-usedocuments. One way is to rely largely on an automated approach that uses software to identify andfind useful documents. Another way is to rely on a more manual, human-driven editorialprocess. This article compares and contrasts the two approaches

Lawyers regularly write briefs or memos that reflect in-depth research; they also create complex

transactional documents. Before the advent of computers, many firms stored briefs in filecabinets and created bound leather volumes of transaction documents. Today, technology

supports broader and more sophisticated knowledge management (KM) efforts, though re-

using work product continues to be an important but still only partially met goal.

Firms that want to re-use work product need to decide how they will capture and re-use

documents. One way is to rely largely on an automated approach that uses software to identify

and find useful documents. Another way is to rely on a more manual, human-driven editorialprocess. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive and a blend is often best. But for

purposes of understanding the pros and cons of each approach, it is useful to consider them as

opposite poles on a spectrum.

Automated Approach

The advantage of a highly automated approach is that it does not require any extra effort by

lawyers. Many firms presume that their lawyers will neither willingly contribute documents to

a KM system nor provide a contextual description for the documents they write. Whether it is

because lawyers are too busy to be bothered or fear sharing their knowledge, it can be verydifficult to motivate them to take the time to designate documents that are worth keeping. An

indicator of the difficulty of this problem is that many lawyers do not even give documents

meaningful titles. Searching a typical firms document collection will reveal many documents

with titles such as Latest Draft, Memo, Revisions, Insert for Joe, or Research for Mary. Withsuch vague titles, one wonders how even the author will remember a week later what a document

is about.

Early automated approaches to finding and re-using work product used full-text search engines

to index every document in the firm. This allowed lawyers to search all documents by using

Boolean or natural language searches (similar to Lexis or Westlaw searches) to identifypotentially useful documents. In practice, this approach proved disappointing because most

searches yield far too many hits to be useful. The reason is twofold. First, document

collections typically contain numerous duplicates. And second, searches often return many


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documents that include the search term but that are not substantively related to the topic the

lawyer is researching.

Consequently, ordinary full text searching of large document collections remains problematic

today. Many large law firms have sophisticated document management systems that support

full-text searches of all the stored documents. Most lawyers and knowledge managementprofessionals find that such searches have only limited value because of these two reasons.

Recently, automated approaches have improved significantly. Products such as West km and

LexisNexis Total Search are much better at automatically identifying useful documents. Bothuse citation analysis to help filter the documents returned during a search, which reduces the

likelihood of spurious hits.

Newer systems also offer improvement on document in-take, that is which documents areselected for inclusion in a system. Various techniquesfor example, word filters, citation

analysis, and de-duplicationlimit the number of documents included in the database. When a

database contains fewer documents, search results are generally more refined.

These newer approaches can also apply sophisticated semantic analysis to put documents into

taxonomic categories (for example, West km categorizes documents into the West Key Number

system). Categorizing documents allows lawyers to search by topic as well as with key words.Furthermore, when searching by key word, lawyers can use the topical classification to help

narrow search results.

This automated approach, however, has limitations. First, citation analysis, which powers many

benefits, is not helpful for transactional documents (though in January 2003, West announced a

transactional version of West km). Second, automated approaches do not provide context. That

is, while automation can unearth relevant documents, even at its best, it does not explain what amatter was actually about. Nor does it explain how the document relates to the matter.

Manual Approach

Because of the problems of early automated systems, some firms, particularly large ones in

England and Australia, instituted manual editorial approaches. These firms employ practicesupport lawyers (PSL) whose job includes talking to lawyers to identify important documents,

collecting those documents, and providing contextual information about them (typically gleaned

by interviewing lawyers who worked on the matter). The documents and context captured can

be stored in a variety of systems, including portals, intranets, or document management systems.

The manual approach has the benefit of being selective, which means only a sub-set of relatively

high value documents are retained for re-use. This makes it much easier to find relevant work

product. Moreover, the contextual information about documents and matters makes it easier forother lawyers to know which documents are truly relevant and how to use them. Another benefit

of the manual approach is that it is no harder to collect transactional documents than research

documents.


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Of course, the big downside of the manual approach is the expense. It is built on a staff of

primarily non-billable lawyers who focus on knowledge management. This approach also

assumes that practicing lawyers will spend some time helping PSLs. While many US law firmsinvest some non-billable time in knowledge management, only a fewprimarily large and very

profitable NYC firmshave hired a dedicated staff of PSLs.

The manual approach does not mean an exclusive reliance on human labortechnology is alsoemployed. Firms with PSLs typically use several systems to facilitate the collection and

cataloging process. For example, they may use the accounting system to identify when a matter

has been closed and then interview the lawyers who worked on it. They can search the documentmanagement system profiles by fields such as author or client-matter number or the content of

documents via a full-text search. Once documents are identified, some firms use portals (e.g.,

Plumtree, iManage WorkSite, or Hummingbird Portal) or intranets to create specialized

knowledge repositories. Some firms also use specialized content management systems such asHyperwave or Vignette. One product, AdvanceKnowledge by ii3, provides a packaged approach

that facilitates the manual approach by making it easy to submit documents and capture context,

in part through workflow features and a built-in taxonomy.

Choosing an Approach

So, which approach is better, which is right? To answer this, a firm must first define its currentand future requirements. Moreover, it must be realistic about its culture and resources. There is

no point is adopting a manual approach if the firm is unwilling to hire some PSLs or cause

existing lawyers or staff to do some knowledge management. While these considerations maypush firms to the automated approach, they must also be aware that automated solutions are not

free. They entail potentially significant costs to acquire, integrate, deploy, and maintain a

system. And in the end, lawyers may find the results of an automated approach disappointing,

especially if the set-up and expectations are not carefully managed.

Of course, the best answer is likely to be a blend of the two approaches. There is evidence that

the market is moving in this direction. Sally Gonzalez, a knowledge management consultantwith Baker Robbins & Co. suggests in Knowledge Management: U.S. or U.K.? Who Really

Rules? inLaw Technology News (October 2003) that the two approaches may be converging.

Firms just beginning the assessment can consider pilot-testing both approaches. And whatever

the approach, it is wise to monitor usage and value. Absent setting up a feedback loop that

allows a firm to assess the value or return of a knowledge system, it may be difficult to sustain

interest in and resources for an on-going effort.

While the choices available and decision making process may seem daunting, the good news is

that there are far more viable options today than even a few years ago. Firms can try mixing and

matching the approaches. Whatever choice a firm makes, it is critical to set realisticexpectations, monitor on-going results, and adjust the strategy as necessary.


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Ron Friedmann is the president of Prism Legal Consulting, which helps law firms and

departments with the strategic use of technology. He is a lawyer by training and recently served

as chief information officer of Boston-based Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. E-mail: [email protected]