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88 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | W I N T E R 2 0 2 1 contracts, majorly bespoke advice, or high-value regulatory updates. The outputs at their disposal help them create that desired business outcome. So, what steps do organizations need to take, or what infrastructure should they have in place, to successfully cultivate these knowledge outputs and deliver them to knowledge workers? Clearly, it isn't just about AI, although that's certainly a valuable component. You need a whole integrated platform/ecosystem. For starters, it requires a place to securely collaborate on building those assets and that data. Fortunately, many law firms already have a secure collaboration tool that most of their professionals are already using on a daily basis for their matter work: their DMS. But it's also about bringing in valuable third-party data – think here of sources that provide know-how around practice areas or experience management. A superior end user experience means ensuring you don't have multiple entry points where the end user has to remember to go and look in multiple different systems for knowledge. Integration with the DMS eliminates this pain point. From a single search, a lawyer can search for best practice templates and example documents from past deals. They know the full text search will retrieve options from their deals/matters, from the firm's knowledge bank, and from practical guidance information. This is intermingled in results and clearly labelled, allowing the lawyer to have the option to choose the right sources for the task at hand. For searching matters as well as searching the full text of the documents in a matter, professionals like the business services team need to search for parameters that show similar matter characteristics. Structured metadata from matter/experience management allows for these types of comparative searches. The data being searched in Matter Locators comes from multiple structured and document management sources, but in one search – which greatly simplifies the process while providing richer results. The infrastructure required to successfully deliver knowledge outputs to knowledge workers extends to having the right mindsets and processes in place. Users should be empowered to submit and share content that can be curated, and there should also be a plan in place for how content and knowledge assets are maintained and updated. Process is crucial. This step requires building the 'muscle memory' in knowledge teams to deliver these new experiences. That means developing skill sets around areas ranging from data structuring to understanding data driven search. Increasingly, we see many of the above roles being filled by people gravitating to firms (or migrating from their existing roles within firms) to deliver AI projects. There also needs to be an understanding of the different types of end users that are consuming knowledge. Organizations who think of the end user just in terms of lawyers are narrowing their scope too much. There are other end users hungry for knowledge within business development, pricing, marketing, and other areas of the firm. Knowledge goes across the entire organization, across business services as well as the front line knowledge workers – and there needs to be a way to help them curate and share knowledge. Ultimately, success is about getting all the super- heroes at the law firm to come together to collaborate, with the KM group running point. We can see, then, a clear outline taking shape around roles and responsibilities. Knowledge management and information management professionals produce knowledge and starting points for knowledge workers to pick up. Their skill is in creating knowledge and maintaining consistency in knowledge starting points, F R O M T H E K M C C T

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