Digital White Papers

60 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Modern KM Is Automatic: Keep the Humans, Just Automate the Knowledge Increasing Lawyer Productivity. As client expectations rise, firms must find a synchronous relationship between value and differentiation. Firms should focus on eliminating time-consuming tasks and maximizing the time lawyers spend on client relationships and service innovation. Minimizing Risk. Already a major issue for law firms, global compliance continues to become more complex. Firms must pay more aention to adhering to regulations to reduce the very real threat of litigation. Driving Profitability. The eventual death of the billable hour means firms must rethink how they approach work. Firms must do more with less by optimizing people and improving processes to cut costs and increase margins. Differentiating Through Service. Disruptive technologies, heightened client expectations and intensifying competitive pressure make client service crucial to creating opportunities for differentiating one's firm. To remain competitive, firms must find creative ways to deliver their services and collaborate with clients. As the pace of change accelerates, law firms must revise their approach to knowledge management to solve real business challenges. The firm of the future will think beyond repositories and databases to leverage knowledge to drive lawyer productivity, ensure compliance and modernize service delivery. It is time for knowledge managers to take a seat at the revenue table. The effective use of technology will be the key to geing them there. Automating Knowledge Work Firms have reached a tipping point for technology as the need for efficiency has grown. Although the knowledge management function traditionally has not been the vanguard of innovation, law firms are on the verge of a technological shi toward automating knowledge. By the nature of business, law firms are defined by specialist knowledge and expertise. Yet, that knowledge oen exists in disparate, unsystematic environments within the firm. As external pressures mount, using advanced automation technologies will help firms integrate valuable intelligence into core business activities to streamline and innovate service delivery. McKinsey & Company predicts that over the next 10 years, knowledge work automation will be the most significant disruptive technology to influence the world, second only to the addition of two to three billion mobile internet users by 2025. The automation of knowledge work is expected to have a $5 to $7 trillion economic impact across a wide range of industries by 2025. Remember that these figures exclude any estimate of the value of higher quality output expected to come from the more productive use of knowledge tools. Knowledge work automation has the potential to bring more timely access to information, enhance the quality and pace of decision-making, and ultimately improve performance. The business implications for law firms are enormous, as firms will be able to more easily balance profitability and client service innovation. McKinsey & Company suggests that 23 percent of lawyers' time can be automated. If so, firms can leverage automation to divert the time lawyers spend on repetitive tasks to strategically advising clients and building relationships. In an ideal situation, automation will not replace lawyers but rather augment how they work. Automation should enable lawyers The automation of knowledge work is expected to have a $5 to $7 trillion economic impact across a wide range of industries by 2025.

• Cover