Effective Knowledge Management for Law Firms

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, Jul 1, 2004 - Law - 264 pages
While there is significant interest in knowledge management as it applies to legal environments, there are very few books specifically focused on this topic. In Effective Knowledge Management For Law Firms, Matthew Parsons expertly fills this gap by drawing on his work with a leading commercial law firm, Mallesons Stephen Jaques. He examines how law firms can implement a knowledge strategy to support their business strategy, rather than getting beguiled by fads and technology. Parsons first outlines the terrain, including what knowledge management means, the business and economics of law firms, and how lawyers work as knowledge workers. He then introduces a methodology for creating and implementing law firm knowledge strategy, which combines for the first time the interrelated aspects of recruiting, training, research, document production, information management, and digital knowledge strategy. Parsons goes beyond theories to provide detailed, practical help for the analysis, implementation, and measurement of performance-increasing initiatives. This book will be an invaluable resource for all those involved with the management and leadership of law firms and knowledge management initiatives.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
3
Understanding the Terrain Knowledge Management Law Firms and Lawyers
11
Plotting and Sailing a Course Creating and Implementing Law Firm Knowledge Strategy
75
Recommendations for Your Personal Interpersonal and Impersonal Knowledge Strategies
157
Resources to Build Your Tacit Knowledge
219
Notes
241
Index
247
Copyright

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Page 46 - Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men, Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which wisdom builds, Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Page 13 - A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
Page 98 - Schein (1985) defines culture as: a pattern of basic assumptions — invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration — that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems, (p.
Page 186 - Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.
Page 26 - Knowledge Management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival and competence in face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change. . . . Essentially, it embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings.
Page 161 - The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
Page 77 - What business strategy is all about — what distinguishes it from all other kinds of business planning — is, in a word, competitive advantage. Without competitors there would be no need for strategy, for the sole purpose of strategic planning is to enable the company to gain, as efficiently as possible, a sustainable edge over its competitors.
Page 8 - One's first step in wisdom is to question everything — and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
Page 182 - Social capital consists of the stock of active connections among people: the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible...
Page 174 - Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

About the author (2004)

Matthew Parsons is a knowledge management consultant with over eighteen years of experience with accounting and law firms. He holds degrees in accounting and law from the University of New South Wales, Australia; has practiced as a mergers and acquisitions attorney; and was formerly the Director of Know How and Online Products at the Australian-based international law firm, Mallesons Stephen Jacques. In addition to consulting, he currently lectures at the Weatherhead Business School at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

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