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After-Action Reviews and Law Firms:
You're in the Army Now! by Charlotte R. Herring
Most recently, Charlotte Herring was the Director of Knowledge and Research Services at WilmerHale, where she was the business owner of all KM initiatives, including enterprise search and the extranet project. Prior to joining WilmerHale, Char retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel, serving 21 years as an attorney. During her last assignment with the U.S. Army, Char initiated the KM program for the Judge Advocate General's Corps. She can be contacted via LinkedIn.
Generations of soldiers and the judge advocates (attorneys) who support them have been using the After-Action Review (AAR) process as a means of reporting lessons learned in the U.S. Army for decades. I suspect that I am in a unique position, having retired from the U.S. Army, practiced law for over two decades and practiced knowledge management in both the military and at an AmLaw20 firm. Based on this diverse experience, I can vouch for the usefulness and ease of the AAR process. In fact, I am 100 percent confident that if law firms included AARs as part of most matter closeouts, applying these simple, systematic processes
66 ILTA White Paper