The Risk of Ignorance

 

Well, I accept you may not have attributed the label of ‘knowledge management’ to any of your procedures, and I don’t actually blame you for that, as it’s one of those jargon phrases which can mean as much or as little as the speaker wants it to, but believe me, you will have some such procedures in place, even if they are fairly rudimentary.  For instance, you’ve got a library, haven’t you?

 

 

Not of itself.  But there are plenty of procedures which need to go with it, if it isn’t to pose a threat to you.  For instance, what about those piles of updates to your looseleaf volumes, still in the cellophane wrappers at the end of the bookshelf?  You need someone delegated to ensure they are put in promptly when they come in, and not just as a secondary duty when someone’s got spare time.  And whose job is it to carry out a regular check on whether all the other volumes are up-to-date editions, and to throw out all those which aren’t?

 

I know – but not as much as the fortune it might cost you if you give advice based on law which has long been superseded.  After all, you don’t do much to keep yourselves up-to-date, do you?

 

 

There’s a difference between getting them and reading them.  What about that pile of unopened Gazettes over there.  Don’t tell me you’ll ‘get round to it’.  And anyway, when you do read something, I’ll bet you just read it with an eye to the bits that interest you in your speciality, and not what might be important to your colleagues in other areas.  I remember you told me before that you’d tried passing the other periodicals round the office, but they tended to get stuck after the first couple of people.

 

 

For a start, if everyone is getting a source of information, it’s your job as a manager to make sure they do in fact use it.  That applies to your partners as well.  It’s a fundamental part of any lawyer’s responsibilities to keep up to date.  For any other periodical, it’s better for it to stay in one place than to be passed around and get lost.  If that’s going to be centralised, then make it an individual’s job to go through all the periodicals regularly, and circulate a summary of points of interest for any part of the firm.  It doesn’t have to be long – just a couple of lines to whet the appetite.  If individual partners are going to keep certain periodicals in their rooms, it has to be their responsibility to summarise that particular journal’s points of interest for everyone, and circulate that.  Bear in mind that this, like research generally, is an activity which can often rank for CPD hours, so long as people remember to log the time they spend.

 

 

 

Well, IT certainly offers many more sources of information, but that doesn’t take away at all from the value of the printed word, and the need for the steps I’ve talked about.  What you can do, however, is add on a huge range of sources of information.  Many providers now offer daily web-based or e-mail summaries of developments which can be on your screen desktop by the time you crawl into the office in the morning.  Individuals can tailor them for their own spheres of interest.

 

 

Not usually.  Some are actually free.  Some charge, but they may not work out too expensive when they are spread across the number of fee earners within the firm.  Often, they are linked into a package with other facilities as well, such as case-law or statutory research capabilities.

 

 

They’ve actually done an awful lot.  Every Government department will have its own website, and the information on them is often very helpful.  They’re free, of course.  The HMSO site has all statutes and statutory instruments since 1988.  Government sites will often have consultation papers listed as well, and proposals for changes in the law.  The Law Commission’s sit’s a great one for this.  They can help give you a real edge in keeping ahead of the game.  Think how impressed you clients can be if you know what’s coming, and pass the information on to them, before it hits the headlines.

 

 

There are loads of them out there.  Again some will charge (though they may have some free information areas as well).  Others – including a large number provided by other solicitors firms – are totally free.

 

 

You’ll soon get to know those which are passing on information – case law etc – and those which are offering an opinion.  They’re just like any other form of publication, really.  If you’re in any doubt, of course, try to check the information from a second source.  Or simply e-mail the providers and ask where they got their information from.  Most are maintained by people with a real interest in their subject, and they’ll be happy to respond.

 

 

No.  There’s still a very important place for all forms of training, of which formal courses are only a part.  There are always reservations about courses, with the direct cost of the fees, and the indirect cost of the time taken. But they still have an important role, especially as there is such a range that they can be keyed in very carefully to the fee earner’s needs.  The important thing to do is to make sure that what you, as a firm, spend on courses actually benefits not just the individual trained, but the firm as an entity.

 

 

Well, there are two aspects.  First off, who chooses the courses, and ensures that they are really going to be useful for the fee earner?  Lawyers (especially partners) are great at picking out a course leaflet, thinking it looks interesting, and booking themselves a day off for the purpose, without really thinking through whether it is really suitable.  Does it fit the firm’s strategy to develop a speciality in a new area?  Is the course going to be one where they will have a real chance to put into practice what they learn in short order, or will they just forget it through lack of use?  How does the idea fit into the firm’s training plan and, importantly, its training budget?

 

 

That’s the second part.  From the firm’s viewpoint, you need to ensure that the knowledge you’ve paid for is available to anyone within the firm who needs it, and stays within the firm.  If the individual who has had the training leaves the firm, you don’t want knowledge you’ve paid for walking out of the door with him.

 

 

There are a variety of ways.  First off, the course notes should be kept centrally, and a list should be maintained of what subjects have been covered.  (Mind you, the warning I sounded earlier about how up-to-date information is has to be borne in mind if notes are themselves a couple of years old.)  Secondly, the person trained should be obliged to pass on as much as possible of the information they have gained.  The best bet is for them to conduct an in-house training exercise for their colleagues, to indicate what they’ve learned.  (This can have the incidental benefit of helping the individual get used to making presentations, which can be handy not only for them but for you, if you want them to help later with client seminars etc.)  If this isn’t possible, then they should at least be required to produce some sort of summary notes for distribution, and again there should be a centrally kept copy.

 

 

All we’ve talked about so far are inputs – making sure people have the right current knowledge.  The other side of things is the outputs.  You need to make sure that what you produce is correct, and again is available to the firm as an entity.  This is more what is often called document management.

 

 

Partly.  They are certainly an important part of what I’m talking about.  Precedents are often living documents, which go through many changes.  So, what you need is to make sure that the original draft is as good as you can get.  That means it should be checked over by someone other than its author – you know how easy it is for us all to get too close to a document after a while to be able to see the wood for trees.  Then it should be the subject of careful edition control and noting, so that there is never any doubt then or later about which edition of a document is being referred to.  Many word processing systems will have some of the elements of this in place, but normally this will need careful tailoring to the firm’s particular needs.  When you’ve created the precedent to your satisfaction, you need to ensure that it is preserved for the firm’s benefit.  That means it must be secure – i.e. not just held on the individual’s hard drive, from where he can accidentally or deliberately delete it, but also available centrally.  Also, there’s no point in having a good precedent library if no-one knows what’s there, so there needs to be a good and accessible list of what’s available.

 

 

Precedents are only part of what goes out of your office, aren’t they?  Any document which leaves with your name on it needs to be capable of control.  I admit that checking every letter or e-mail may well be impossible, but you should have some controls.  Spot checks may help.  Some system for ranking the importance of mail etc according to what is being stated may be devised.  For instance, a letter telling the client there’s a meeting on such-and-such a date may be straightforward; but a letter advising the client that the law which will be applicable at that meeting is as set out in the letter, and that the advised course of action is as stipulated, may well deserve automatic verification from someone other than the author.  Some forms of letter, e.g. those offering undertakings, may be ones which you decide must always be checked by another, as well as being carefully recorded (both centrally and on file).  It’s all a part of the general risk management process of trying to identify where the nature of your business makes you vulnerable, and plugging these gaps as far as you can.

 

 

No-one said it was going to be easy!  But think how much less time you should, at least after a while, have to spend in dealing with complaints and claims, or, going back to the capturing of knowledge within the firm, in scratching around for the information you need, or someone within the firm with the knowledge you need to tap into.  You might even start to see some space on the floor, where the pile of magazines used to be!

 

 

 

Simon Young MBA is a Solicitor and Management Consultant.  He can be contacted on syoung@eurobell.co.uk