P2P

winter21

Peer to Peer: ILTA's Quarterly Magazine

Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1439196

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75 I L T A N E T . O R G training towards the type of work that associate is working on currently. This enables a firm to provide the right training on the right projects at the right time in an associate's career. One of the most important implications of using Tableau to visualize firm data is supporting the firm's commitment to the advancement of diverse lawyers. Unconscious biases have real and lasting implications related to efforts to hire, mentor and promote individuals from diverse backgrounds. The insidious nature of unconscious bias is such that we don't always even realize how it impacts us. Take for example the bias we all have towards events that happened recently versus those that happened some time ago. This is a well-documented phenomenon known as recency bias. You see this play out in law firms all the time. Ask any associate during a mid-year review about the work they have done and they will focus their attention on the matters they have worked on most recently. It is what comes to mind first and therefore takes on greater importance to him or her. This plays out when you ask lawyers to define the type of work their practice encompasses. They are more likely to place an emphasis on the types of matters they were recently working on, and assign them more weight when recalling the amount of time they spent. Emotions, from satisfaction with your team members on a project, to annoyance or frustration with a client can lead to you remembering incorrectly the frequency or duration you worked on a matter. Your emotions and your distance from an event can affect your memory; you may think you worked with Ted down the hall every day on a complex de-SPAC, when in reality it was only a handful of times. The same phenomenon can occur in other contexts; you may think you assigned a female colleague to the same number of renewable energy projects as you assigned her male counterparts, but you may be assigning a greater weight to your female colleague's work because she frequently talked to you about a matter she was staffed on. Tableau and experience management platforms allow you to take emotions and subjective memories out of play and instead rely on data to determine if diverse lawyers are receiving the right opportunities to further their career, including equal opportunities for being staffed on matters that will help provide them with the fundamental experiences and training for success. We are collecting more data than ever, and our ability to harness this information to the benefit of the firm and our clients are endless. The information we collect can be used for more purposes than previously imagined. Data Visualization tools, like Tableau, have enabled us to understand our data in ways we never previously explored. These tools allow our firms to take those insights and develop them into patterns and processes to construct action plans for the future. We should continue to reflect on the data we have, and how we can leverage that data to improve our internal processes, client relationships, and overall job satisfaction. It is the role of the modern Knowledge Management department to help our organizations harness the collective knowledge of our firm and to use the data we have to make meaningful measurable change. Technology such as Foundation and Tableau is making our jobs even more impactful. ILTA Lauren May is the Lead Lawyer for Transactional Knowledge Management at Sidley Austin. In her current role in the organization, she oversees all transactional knowledge management lawyers and specializes in expanding collective knowledge for the tax, employee benefits, and executive compensation groups. Rachel Shields Williams is the Director, Knowledge Management Technology at Sidley Austin. In her current role in the organization, she focuses on delivering innovative solutions that impact business development and improve firm efficiency while taking into account people, processes, and change management.

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