Digital White Papers

July 2014: Knowledge Management

publication of the International Legal Technology Association

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ILTA WHITE PAPER: JULY 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 6 second largest group being librarians at only 17%. Yet, in 2014, we see a surprising shift in whom KM reports to. While in 2012, 25% reported to the senior administrative officer (e.g., CAO or COO) and 36% reported to the most senior person on the legal side (e.g., CEO, board or managing partner), the current results show 34% report to a senior administrative officer and only 18% report to a senior person on the legal side; an additional 6% report to practice groups. The primary disciplines that report directly to or are part of KM include Library (47%), Legal Project Management (33%), Research (31%) and Innovation and Research and Development (30%). With an additional 10 areas included in KM at 10 – 29% of firms, the scope of KM's mandate appears to be expanding. Most firms report having a formal KM strategy either in place (32%) or in development (32%). Of those with a strategy in place, the majority (53%) update their strategy concurrently with or soon after the firm's business strategy changes, supporting the tenet that KM must be tied closely to the firm's objectives and direction. As in past years, we asked people to share their KM vision or mission statement; this year about a dozen offered examples. Creating efficiency, leveraging knowledge, delivering value to clients and supporting collaboration continue to be dominant themes in the visions shared. My personal favorite among the responses indicates a firm that truly recognizes the value of KM; it read, "Considered business-sensitive!" As in past years, the KM Peer Group sent the survey to members of the ILTA KM e-group (online discussion forum) and local KM groups. Several KM bloggers and tweeters also passed it along through social networking channels. We are pleased to report we received a record 147 responses this year — double our 2012 responses. We thank you for your time and continued interest. Over the years, responses have come predominantly from law firms — generally hovering around 90% — and this year was no exception at 93%. As for the size of responding organizations, this year's responses were spread nicely, with firms with 51 – 250 lawyers (29%) and 501 – 1,000 lawyers (25%) being most represented (which is consistent with the last survey). However, we saw an impressive increase in responses from firms with fewer than 50 lawyers, which rose from 3% in the last survey to 17% this year. This very encouraging result might suggest the value of KM is recognized by firms of all sizes. As in the past, most respondents operate in one country (48%), and international firms located in six or more countries remained at 26%. ORGANIZATION KM seems to be steadily maturing and taking on increased importance within law firms. Since we started conducting these surveys, the percentage of firms in which KM is a separate department has increased from 48% in 2008 to 52% in 2014. In firms with multiple offices, KM remains mostly centralized in one office that provides services across the firm, though the percentage dropped from 75% in 2012 to 66% this year. Practicing or non-practicing lawyers continue to lead KM efforts at most firms at 47%, with the 2014 KM SURVEY RESULTS Conducted by ILTA's Knowledge Management Peer Group every two years since 2008, this fourth knowledge management (KM) survey is designed to help ILTA members interested in KM benchmark their organization's KM program and keep on top of trends and hot topics in legal KM. The following summarizes the results of the survey and any trends or significant changes since 2012 (and previous years).

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