Digital White Papers

THE PRICING PROFESSIONAL'S KM TOOLKIT in the accounting system. To solve these kinds of problems and many others that occur every day in the world of pricing, pricing professionals need to: •Understand and leverage their existing knowledge management resources •Potentially develop new KM tools that leverage the past in new ways are matter experience databases, enterprise content search and existing workflow applications that the lawyers use in support of their clients. These types of systems are potential treasure troves and worthy of special consideration. For a pricing professional, a matter experience database is invaluable. This system is often of transaction, what process was used in the deal, the type of consideration and a description of the matter. Different firms will capture different information for different groups, but experience databases are fairly common because the information is often used to support client pitches and requests for proposals. For a pricing professional, a matter experience database can help identify comparable matters, denote •Ensure all information needed to understand the levers of pricing is captured LEVERAGE EXISTING KM TOOLS One of the first exercises a pricing professional should perform if new to the job, new to a firm or new to the idea of using knowledge management as an aid is to inventory the firm's KM systems. Some firms have dedicated KM departments and others just have individuals focused on various pursuits scattered in different departments. It is worth talking to marketing, IT, the library and practice area leaders to take stock of existing resources. Although some resources might not seem immediately useful (e.g., model document libraries), make note of them anyway — it is probable they will be important at some future point for legal project management and process improvement. A few common resources that many law firms have maintained by the marketing department, a practice area or some combination of both. For litigation matters, they could contain matter-level information such as industry, jurisdiction, type of case, allegations in the complaint, outcome information, scope of the class for class actions, decision and class certification dates, appeal information and a description of the matter. For mergers and acquisitions, the system could contain information including industry, the role of the client, transaction size, closing date, the type important dates (e.g., class certification date) and might contain some of the important characteristics and levers for pricing. It is probable existing experience databases will not contain everything a pricing professional needs to understand exactly how to support pricing for a given practice area, but it is still a big step forward. Over the past decade, many law firms have invested in enterprise content search applications. Depending

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