Small Firms and Solos Can Best Leverage Their Work With KM

Special to the Law.com Legal Technology blog
By Bryan Redding

There are more than 850,000 lawyers in the U.S. currently practicing as solo practitioners or with small firms (less than 20 attorneys). This demographic is faced with challenges that firms of all sizes face, albeit on a more pronounced scale: smaller budgets, fewer support staff and the need to spend more time fulfilling clients’ needs on a personal, hands-on basis -- all while providing increased value at lower costs in this tough economy. As a result, more small firms are thinking strategically about making cost-effective investments in technology like knowledge management to help them meet these challenges while growing their practices. Read the rest of this article.

Comments

[SydneyPLUS International]

There are many important points in this article that we hear from small law firms:

1. web-based access
2. hosted option (SaaS)
3. legal specific technology

A fourth discussion point from a KM vendor’s perspective that we hope a small law firm would consider is the “buy versus build” dilemma, which is often presented as a choice between "buying an out-of-the-box product" that is easy to implement, but may not be exactly what is needed, OR building a product with in-house staff or consultants that is time consuming, but closer to one's needs.

4. build vs. buy

For a small law firm, there is more of an argument to purchase or subscribe to a product “out of the box” because it can lower the cost of implementation, but we think that this is a false choice in the marketplace.

While the “out of the box” product may provide a quick implementation, and we would start there with any client, we think that KM vendor’s should provide a toolkit.

With minimal training, we provide a toolkit allowing staff the ability to configure the product at two levels: the database schema (e.g. data entry forms) and portal.

A more concrete example is that while we can provide online, secure access to your important documents, how should you capture the relevant data about the document?

As you describe that document using a standard one-size-fits-all template, consider how much more meaningful it would be if your vendor let you change the form? You would have a place to capture the important information.

When you go to access that critical document, imagine if you had a search interface with the fields you want to search on? You would find the document much more quickly with a personalized search interface.

Under the surface of any discussion on KM involving the management of documents is a database. As a KM vendor, we have found that giving a user interface for managing that database and a complimentary user interface for designing the front-facing portal is paramount to the success of a small law firm because there are differences in every firm.