Almost all legal work carried out by law firms includes tasks that the law firm has done before and expects to do again.? Due diligence and the drafting of a sale and purchase agreement are prime examples. Hence the proliferation of knowledge management systems, which would be useless if this weren?t true.? Almost any task that can be repeated over and over again with relatively minor amendments and tweaking can be commoditised. By that I mean that the process to complete the task can be broken down into a series of steps. The process of working out what those steps are and their logical sequence probably needs to be done by a good lawyer. However, most, if not all, of the steps themselves probably don?t need to be completed by a qualified lawyer.?
Streamlining repeat processes is at the heart of many law firm KM initiatives. ?Law firms charge money for their lawyers? time.? The more senior the lawyer, the more expensive their time. ?The more fee earning lawyers are used, the more money the partners make. It?s in the partners? immediate interests to use fee earning lawyers for as many steps in every process as possible.? Clearly there?s a tension between the commoditisation of legal services, KM initiatives and partner reward.? In my experience, the way law firms react to this tension is a pretty good indication of whether they?re truly committed to both knowledge management and to passing on the resultant benefits to their clients.
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