Peer to Peer Magazine

September 2013

The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association

Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/163881

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best practices Knowledge Strategies = Power Knowledge Strategy: To accelerate the search process and enhance its efficiency, organizations must align the security protocols of their suite of tools. A common framework will allow users to access a fully integrated information inventory to yield the maximum amount of knowledge. A company can implement a single sign-on approach, for example, to provide secure search and secure data access. Don't underestimate the difficulty of achieving this, and remember to check periodically whether people are setting the proper access security on their documents. Establishing this infrastructure will require a collaborative effort between those responsible for knowledge at the firm and others with technical oversight. That combination of talent and recognition of a common purpose will yield immediate results. Follow the Golden Rule (and Ethical Walls) Law firms are at a watershed. They must adapt to a new world: a perfect storm of information explosion combined with heightened expectations from clients focused on efficiency and costeffectiveness. Meeting this challenge requires new knowledge strategies and effective, tailored, secure information systems. Those that can reveal hidden knowledge assets by unifying multiple data-rich back-end systems in a single view will gain a competitive advantage. The use of search technology can eliminate the need for costly systems integration and leverage current investments in existing enterprise systems and tools. Incorporating search-based applications, machine-generated metadata and security across multiple systems along with ethical wall best practices as knowledge strategies can make legal teams more effective. Embarking on a campaign to connect, enrich and interact will reduce end-to-end search time for legal staff while ensuring senior members of the legal team can find the information they need in the most efficient way possible regardless of its location. By redefining your knowledge strategies in this fashion, you can empower your entire organization and instill greater confidence in the clients it serves. Despite the increasing value of fully accessible information, firms have an obligation to limit one's ability to review data in matters that pose a potential conflict or the threat of an ethical violation, e.g., where a firm represents both a client and its competitor in unrelated transactions. Since this situation can arise dynamically, depending on information architecture or content library organization, support for ethical walls is often inadequate. The ability to create one easily on demand is essential and can be a competitive advantage to a firm. This limitation is also part of an implied promise to safeguard the information of each client. Even the smallest breach of that covenant is unacceptable. Knowledge Strategy: By carefully and automatically linking individuals to a sophisticated series of permissions related to the data, firms can mitigate their risk of inadvertently bypassing an ethical wall, particularly when the authorization dynamically adjusts based on certain milestones. Employing systems that support these restrictions — dynamically limiting information access based on them — is an effective practice, particularly in a compliance-driven environment. Jeff Fried, BA Insight's CTO, is focused on strategic applications of search technology. Prior to joining BA Insight, Jeff was a vice president of advanced solutions for FAST Search and Transfer. He is a frequent speaker and writer in the industry, holds 15 patents and is a co-author of "Professional SharePoint Development" (2010, 2013) and "Professional Microsoft Search." Jeff can be contacted at jfried@bainsight.com. 12 Peer to Peer

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