Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T 20 F U T U R E O F K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T : F R O M T H E P E R S P E C T I V E O F T H E N E X T G E N E R A T I O N O F I N D U S T R Y L E A D E R S W H A T S K I L L S D O Y O U T H I N K P E O P L E W I L L N E E D T O D E V E L O P O R R E F I N E I N O R D E R T O B E S U C C E S S F U L ? As KM legal specialists we need to get ahead of the changes and lead others through the change curve to be successful and still have a seat at the table five years from now. In five years, successful KM teams must have established credibility at the management levels of their firms so they are included in the firm strate conversations and can participate in direction setting rather than mainly react to it. Beyond the job-specific skills needed, adaptability, curiosity, and integrated, critical thinking will continue to grow in importance. We are at an exciting time in law from an organizational psycholo perspective. With the advances in KM technolo we'll see, KM professionals will be no doubt be excited to bring the latest and greatest innovations to their firms and their clients. Unfortunately, "If you build it, they will come," sadly, does not work in legal technolo. Even the most promising KM tools can quickly become shelf ware without a well-thought-out strate for rolling out the initiative. KM professionals must develop their internal marketing, training, and project management skills in order to capitalize on the exciting advantages and ensure success. MB ES W H A T D O Y O U T H I N K W I L L B E T H E " N E X T B I G T H I N G " P E O P L E A R E T A L K I N G A B O U T ? Conceivably a topic raised during a recent ILTA programming meeting called the "maker movement in law." This phrase describes the increasing number of consumer products available to accomplish things like building an app without programming skills. As makers, all legal professionals can build their own technical solutions. KM professionals could ride the coattails of this movement and build their own KM solutions and/or partner with lawyers at their firm who are building solutions to solve challenges that are unsurmountable today. We are at the tip of the iceberg of what AI can do in legal (as well as other professions). AI will continue to improve for purposes of document review and new products will come online that use AI to speed up drafting and negotiation. For corporate attorneys, especially, I hope to soon see the end of the days when an associate's first task on a new deal is to go pull five precedent documents a partner mentioned to review and combine into a new document for the current deal. I believe, within 5 years, AI will make that task much easier. MB AR W H A T N E W O P P O R T U N I T I E S D O Y O U T H I N K W I L L E X I S T F O R K M P R O F E S S I O N A L S W I T H I N F I R M S ? More leadership positions, direct interaction with clients, partnerships with related business functions, and opportunities to leverage design thinking to drive change through frameworks and methodologies promoting innovation. KM professionals who want to work directly with clients will find many more pathways to do so in the near future, as firms expand client-facing technolo and knowledge offerings. KM professionals who are also technologists will increasingly be sought after as more and more KM projects have technolo components and have to 'play nice' with other firm systems. While KM professionals traditionally operated behind the scenes in law firms, five years from now KM professionals will have greater client-facing opportunities, cementing their place as indispensable firm personnel. These activities will include development, training, and management of client- facing expert systems (which provide clients with answers to legal questions, asked via a Turbo-Tax-like platform); enhanced client collaboration portals (akin to online banking, but for a client's legal matters); and more mature legal project management efforts. KM personnel are also seeing increased participation in client pitches – as they are ideally-suited to explain how a firm's KM innovations can help the client, a trend I expect will see an exponential growth in the future. MB AR ES

• Cover