Undeniably, knowledge management (KM) is one of the buzz phrases within the Legal IT arena today. Despite the prolific nature of KM seminars and literature, proportionally few firms have committed to a stand-alone KM system. To address this issue, and to explore Legal IT professionals’ vision for KM, Tikit co-sponsored a recent survey “Knowledge Management: An In-Depth Look into KM’s Current Use and Future Trends in the Legal Profession”. This survey was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ legal research centre, and published by the University of Florida’s Legal Technology Institute. More than 300 firms participated, both in the US and the UK, aiming to answer the question of what is holding back the majority of firms from investing in a KM system. The findings suggested three key areas of concern.
Defining a strategy
One reason why firms have not yet forged ahead with a full KM project is because they do not have a clear strategic objective outlined to benefit their firm. Is it the case that management fails to buy in to unclear or incoherent strategic plans? Or is it because of a lack of appropriate management buy-in, that the process of setting strategy so often seems to produce unsatisfactory results in the first place? Interestingly, the survey seemed to suggest that support is more typically found among a firm’s management and fee earners than among its librarians or IT staff.
