Digital White Papers

July 2013: Knowledge Management

publication of the International Legal Technology Association

Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/143561

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Think beyond the tool itself. Some of the most challenging aspects of this effort involve the development of taxonomies and processes that work for a diverse population of lawyers and business developers. Ample time and thought was and continues to be spent on such aspects of this initiative. Frequent communication with lawyers, business developers and others about capturing, classifying and utilizing experience information is also vital. Integrate the experience tool with other firm systems. The dataflow to EXP needs to be as automated and sustainable as possible. EXP will be connected to our Elite time and billing system (for matter information) as well as to our ADP HR system (for skills). A long-term objective is to connect matters in EXP to finance dashboards. Build in lateral external experience functionality. This will help ensure the tool's value will be optimized and that EXP will account for Dechert's entire attorney population. EXPERIENCE MATTERS AT DECHERT to showcase experience in a particular area not captured adequately. from the inability to fully classify historical (pre-EXP) matters. The "other" field will be audited periodically by our designated EXP administrator, who will access newly entered areas of expertise in an attempt to sync similar areas created by multiple end users and to preserve new areas in this section's taxonomy. Self-identified expertise will be segregated from matter experience in the search results, so when searching for timekeepers with a certain type of experience, users will first see all attorneys who have worked on matters coded to the legal service search term, after which they will see a list of selfidentified experts. To the extent a self-identified area not covered by the matter classification system becomes widely selected, there might also be an opportunity to incorporate that area into the system so that, going forward, matters can be tagged to this area when opened. Individual Attorney Skills: EXP will also provide access to individual attorney skills and nonmatterrelated experience at the timekeeper level. This functionality will allow for an experience profile with greater depth, encompassing not only practice area expertise but also "soft" skills of particular value. Searching on "timekeeper experience," as opposed to "matter experience" will enable an end user to select a particular attorney and search for matter experience, of course, but also for nonmatter experience and skills, including language abilities, bar admissions, clerkships and significant employment history (e.g., government entities or in-house corporate counsel). All of this nonmatter-related information will pull directly from ADP (our HR system) and feed into EXP. The self-identified expertise component of EXP will also connect to the biographical search capabilities of Dechert's external website. Therefore, EXP users will be given additional accessibility to attorneys' self-identified experience outlined in external biographies. This feature, coupled with the "put yourself on the map" functionality, will help offset the data gap in matter-level experience resulting Going forward, this type of information will be collected via a supplemental form submitted to new hires post-offer and administered by our HR department. HR will also be responsible for entering data into ADP so the new hire's skills can be visible on the EXP platform. EXPERIENCE MATTERS We continue to collaborate regularly with IT to customize EXP's functionality and improve its visual

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