Digital White Papers

24 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT One Size Does Not Fit All: Practice Group KM » Case Management: All lawyers have deadlines, but in litigation the number of deadlines to meet can be daunting. A case management system that includes a sophisticated tickler feature provides immeasurable assistance and helps manage risk. Case management tools also contribute to effective file management over the course of a litigation maer. Keeping an accurate record of all steps in a proceeding and related documents can help the litigation team get quickly up to speed if a maer sits dormant for a long time or someone joins a file in progress. » Collaboration Tools: Some tools that service other groups can be adapted for litigators' use. For example, extranets used by transactional lawyers can also be used by litigators to collaborate with clients and provide access to working documents for review or remaining current on a maer's status. Our litigators use the same extranet platform that our corporate lawyers use, with some minor changes to suit their needs. It works reasonably well most of the time; however, for litigation maers that last for many years or involve an unusual number of documents, litigators' requirements diverge from deal room requirements. We found that our platform for litigation maers needs to have a more nuanced search capability over many more documents. Litigation collaboration tools now exist that might be beer-suited to meet the needs of litigation practitioners who wish to share documents with clients in a live environment. Whether you adapt a firmwide tool or look for something specialized will depend on your litigation practice and your existing extranet capabilities. Regulatory/Advisory Practices Regulatory and advisory practitioners need deep access to a narrow band of knowledge and information. Staying current is critical to their practice, as is consistency in their interpretation of the law and the advice they give. » New Developments: Keeping on top of new regulatory developments and case law is key to success for regulatory and advisory practitioners. Nothing is worse than being blindsided by a client asking about a new development in your area of expertise that you have not heard of. For experts in regulatory practices to stay current, relying on legal publishers oen is not sufficient. The time lag is too long, and coverage oen is lacking. The good news is many government bodies and regulators have robust websites containing a wealth of information. Depending on the area of expertise, monitoring a patchwork of regulatory websites can take considerable time and effort. Out of necessity, lawyers have developed their own processes for monitoring developments essential to their practice. Unfortunately, the current methods for achieving those goals are not always efficient, creating a perfect opportunity for KM to help. » Past Advice: Consistency in the advice given by multiple lawyers across a firm is both a significant challenge and critical to the business. To achieve that goal, regulatory and advisory lawyers must have access to past work product. TOP CONTENT Lists of experts, arbitrators and mediators, borne of the combined years of experience of the senior lawyers in a litigation practice, are critical practice tools for litigators.

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