Peer to Peer Magazine

The National Association for Legal Professionals (NALS) identifies organizational knowledge as a key competency for success in the legal secretary role. This includes knowledge of court processes and requirements, internal procedures and policies, as well as knowledge of the firm's business models. Many firms have a tenured secretarial workforce with extensive experience and strong organizational knowledge. Firms report applications for secretarial positions have dropped dramatically in recent years and speculate the role of legal secretary doesn't hold the same long-term appeal it once did. As tenured secretaries leave law firm ranks, how can their knowledge be retained? The organizational knowledge of secretaries can benefit not only other secretaries, but also new attorneys as they join the firm. To quote Bonnie Rae, a 30-year legal secretary veteran, "Associates who have just gotten out of law school are very computer literate. So part of my job is teaching them how a law firm operates." New associates often report they are unsure how to work with a secretary effectively, given many of them are comfortable with the technologies needed to perform their daily tasks. By capturing organizational knowledge so it is accessible to others and by providing secretaries with the training needed to find and use that information, firms can leverage their secretaries as organizational guides to new attorneys as they go through the labyrinth of firm processes and procedures, as well as client and matter history. ADJUST YOUR COURSE At ILTA's annual conference last year, I wrote down a quote from a panelist that stayed with me long after the conference ended: "It's time for KM to come down from our ivory tower." In many firms, knowledge management efforts have focused almost exclusively on garnering the involvement and capturing the input of the firms' attorneys. In some firms, secretaries are unaware of KM efforts or systems. They receive little information on this aspect of their firms, and even less training. But, as one partner with whom I recently met explained, "We are all in service to our clients. Not just the attorneys. All of us. " There are numerous ways in which secretaries can contribute to the success of a firm's knowledge management efforts, but in order to gain their participation, we must begin to think differently not only about the role of the secretary within our firms, but also about knowledge itself. Litéra Galaxy™ secures content, matter and project collaboration, giving law firms and their clients a single, simple, unified and protected view of all content. ■ Cyber-secure platform with multi-factor authentication ■ Full custody control* and visibility of all related data across firewalls ■ Content housed in existing back-end document systems, not the cloud ■ Easy-to-use workflow, approvals and task-tracking management Learn more at Litera.com/Galaxy Peer to Peer 83

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