Will Knowledge Management drive law firms in the future?

There is no doubt in my mind that Knowledge Management ("KM") will drive law firms in the future. In the past, law firms were driven by recruiting the best and the brightest lawyers and developing a reputation for good work. Hiring talented lawyers will be important in the future, but not as important as developing the best KM systems. Why do I believe that? Because the Internet makes people and information more accessible. It's scary to say, but the Internet makes people more of a commodity (not that I believe that personally). With regard to professional services, talent will no longer be the differentiator. The biggest challenge for law firms will be to harness that talent and their reservoirs of knowledge in ways that improve product quality and efficiency. In other words, "Knowledge Management".

Ok, but what is KM? Here are some definitions:

According to Wikipedia, "There is a broad range of thought on Knowledge Management with no unanimous definition current or likely." Wikipedia itself defines Knowledge Management as a "range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning across the organisations." The fact that wikipedia spells the word "organization" differently than I do does not give me much comfort in their definition.

The definition of Knowledge Management that I prefer is "Capturing, organizing, and storing knowledge and experiences of individual workers and groups within an organization and making this information available to others in the organization." (Ironically, I found this definition on Google from a link that is no longer working.) It is the collaborative element of this definition that I find compelling. Lawyers sharing information will make all of us better lawyers and more efficient. KM will facilitate the process.

More practically, I think that KM encompases all of the systems, tools, and infrastructure needed to practice law effectively. In an upcoming blog, I will attempt to break down the concept of Knowledge Management into practical terms and identify how law firms can start to lay the ground work now for developing the systems, tools, and infrastructure that I (and most lawyers) will need to access in the future.

What do you think will drive law firms in the future? Will it be KM or something else?

Why is LinkedIn a good tool for lawyers?

Business development is one of the five themes that The Virtual Lawyer will discuss. In thinking about the "law firm of the future," I have to believe that having an Internet presence will be essential to business development. But how do you create an Internet presence, especially for those of us who grew up in the real world (not the virtual world)?

The short answer is: "I don't know, but I need to start somewhere." The Internet presence of lawyers will evolve over time. How lawyers can create (or recreate) their business image online will be a subject for future blogs. What I know today is that creating an Internet presence online is critical. Just the way people shop for music, books, and electronics online today, they will shop for legal services in the future. Now is the time to experiment with creating a "virtual" presence before everyone else figures it out.

To start building an Internet presence, I submitted my profile to LinkedIn. Many people have invited me to join and I cautiously started to "accept" their invitations. There are many different networking tools and social networking sites, but here is why I selected LinkedIn:

First, I believe that professionals and other service providers, like product businesses need to have a strong presence on the Internet. Whether you think of it as being listed in the "Yellow Pages" (before the Internet), or whether you think of it as joining the Chamber of Commerce, professionals need ways to market their services and generate new business contacts. For business professionals, LinkedIn is one of the leading websites for this purpose.

Second, I selected LinkedIn because it is a leader in the market and it's business model depends on adherence to privacy concerns and they have a strong privacy policy (that is more than just boiler plate). See: http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=privacy_policy&trk=ftr_privacy.

Third, a longtime friend, Erik Heels started using LinkedIn as a networking tool and invited me to join his network. Erik is an extremely thoughtful and talented intellectual property lawyer, who is an innovator in his own right within the legal profession. I took great comfort in knowing that Erik was using it despite the privacy concerns. Also, I thought that if Erik was using LinkedIn as a networking tool for lawyers, then I should consider using it as well.

Fourth, I am using LinkedIn as a way to maintain contact with colleagues and friends and to develop professional business relationships. Today, people frequently change email addresses, move away, or change jobs without sending new contact information. Also, I find it rather time consuming to maintain contact information for everyone I know and I often wonder where people currently work. LinkedIn makes it much easier to keep in touch.

Fifth, LinkedIn is a referral-only network with "gated access". The only way users can be connected is if someone they know forwards a contact request to them and the other user accepts the invitation to make a connection. It's okay if people prefer not to make a connection; I just hope they keep me informed of their change of addresses/professional status.

Sixth, the features and connections made using LinkedIn are quite powerful. You can easily find people, share connections, and identify who may help you to make an important introduction. LinkedIn also provides the user with numerous configuration settings that control what information the user shares with the public.

What I like the most about LinkedIn is knowing that regardless of how my business or career changes, I know that people will always be able to find me and it makes it much easier for me to find them. Since joining, I have reconnected with many colleagues that I worked with at previous employers, who now work in other parts of the country.

If you would like to connect with me on LinkedIn, send me an invitation via my profile at <http://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerglovsky>.

What do you think of LinkedIn as a networking tool for lawyers?

Can blogging help grow a law practice?

This year, my New Year's resolution was to start writing a blog and to contribute regularly. Okay, I'm a little late in starting, but I'm finally ready to put my New Year's resolution in place.

The Plan is to use the blog as a motivator for building a law practice. Not just one that makes money, but one that looks forward, leverages technology, and anticipates new trends. If you will, the law firm of the future. That said, I am currently only a solo practitioner. What I know is that I want to grow my business. I don't know whether that means recruiting partners, hiring paralegals or associates, or adding other staff. I don't know whether that means growing the business physically, virtually or a combination of both.

So, how will a blog help grow a law practice? The idea is to write about one thing at the start of each work day that is critical to building the business. I have a vision for building a law practice. One that provides great quality, leverages technology, and emphasizes customer service.

I imagine that this is how IBM started. The founder of IBM, Tom Watson Sr, as quoted in The E-Myth Revisited, described how IBM built its success:

"IBM is what it is today for three special reasons. The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in my mind of what it would look like when the dream - my vision - was in place.

"The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done.

"The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look like when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there.

"In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.

"From the very outset, IBM was fashioned after the template of my vision. And each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, and discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference.

"Every day at IBM was a day devoted to business development, not doing business. We didn’t do business at IBM, we built one."

Back to my New Year's resolution.... The promise that I made is that every day I would write about one new thing that would help build a law practice. I plan to focus on five separate areas: legal services (product quality and packaging), business development (marketing and sales), office management (technology, systems, knowledge management), recruiting (virtual and real team building), and finance (billing rates, pricing models, cash flow).

My hope is that by writing this blog everyday I will move my business forward and inspire others to do the same. I also want to encourage others to share their thoughts on growing a law practice, either by posting comments on this blog or by sending email to me directly at v-lawyer@lexpertise.com.

The Virtual Lawyer - Introduction

Today, lawyers are not tied to an office. With the advent of the Internet, they can work anytime, anywhere. They can work from a client site, from home, or from a remote vacation spot. All lawyers need is access to people, information, and tools (e.g., software and computer systems). Having access to people, information, and tools doesn’t mean lawyers have to work all the time; it just gives them control over where and when they choose to work. The Virtual Lawyer is all about building the law firm of the future, enabling lawyers to meet in person or in cyberspace, access resources and information, and leverage systems and tools. The end goal is make the practice of law more creative (and less mundane), more productive and more profitable. The legal profession is changing, not just because of technology but also because people are changing and the institutions used to practice law are changing.

In this blog, I will share my journey in developing the "law firm of the future". My perspective is that of a solo practitioner who wants to expand and grow his practice. I will explore new ideas for marketing, client development, legal knowledge, systems and equipment. I hope to encourage others to do the same. It’s a journey, of where and how to build a better law practice. This is just the beginning…