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For those considering their Enterprise Search positioning, this recent article around ReedSmith's selection and implementation of their solution is useful reading, as is a direct conversation with those stakeholders from within the firm.
Full article here.
Lawyers Weekly Magazine last week published a summary of the recent Janders Dean Law Firm Management Conference in Sydney.
The feature report discusses the content and analysis of presentations given by Janet Young (COO of Freehills), Matthew Parsons (author and former global Chief Knowledge Officer at Linklaters), Justin Harness (associate Director of Macquarie Bank) and Simon Price (European Director of Recommind).
The conference was a useful and timely forum within which leaders from the Knowledge Management community in the APAC region discussed both the maturity of the knowledge discipline within law firms, and potential impacts on the future evolution of KM via the economic downturn.
"This year a study by the Korn/Ferry Institute asked senior partners of the Global 100 law firms to rank in order the importance of their support functions. Of the six options available - including business development, finance, HR, IT and sales and marketing - knowledge management came in last.
Janet Young, chief operating officer at Freehills, told the conference that she finds those results concerning. "You've got the top 100 firms in the world saying, '[KM] does not offer much value'."
Editor of Lawyers Weekly Angela Priestley asks: "will the downturn leave its own mark on the current state of the legal sector - and leave knowledge vulnerable to the axe? (Janet) Young thinks not. "It's helping our lawyers deliver what they need to do," she said."
The full feature article can be found here.
The groovy cats at Chilli Marketing have taken London by storm with the successful facilitation of the Global Managing Partners Conference - showing that their successful approach in Australia works well in other markets.
The event was held earlier in June in association with The Law Society - with a write up of the event contained here. One of the most interesting items in the above link speaks of David Childs (Global Managing Partner at Clifford Chance).
"Cost-cutting is also on the agenda. Childs said that Clifford Chance has managed to save £40m in costs between 2004 and 2007, in part by reducing spending on IT. Also, during this time, the ratio of fee-earners to secretaries has been doubled from two fee-earners per secretary to four.
‘I see no reason why fee-earners should not have a secretary based in India,’ he said.
A new cost-saving plan developed in 2004 aims to reduce costs by another £30m by 2011. ‘I have told all our offices to reduce costs by 5%. I wish I [had] said 7.5%.’"
Norton Rose last night won the Law Firm of the Year award at The Lawyer Awards here in London at Grosvenor House. An interesting evening full of numerous (perhaps too many) awards for firms, in-house groups, practice groups and individuals across a number of categories.
Good news for Norton Rose, and good news also for Deacons.
All winners and short listed entries can be found here.
For those of you who could not make the event in Spain (which is pretty much everyone given that only about 80 people attended - of which half were suppliers), here is the video which was presented at the start of the event.
The video is a presentation from the managing partners of Freshfields, Linklaters and Clifford Chance and is an interesting discussion and demonstration of their take on technology and knowledge within their firms.
The link for the presentation is here.
UK giant Norton Rose has announced today a merger with Australian firm Deacons to take effect from 1 January 2010.
After many years of speculation and failed talks between large Australian and UK firms (Clifford Chance and Mallesons, etc), we finally see a solid example of two leaders from their own markets fully merging to create a true global footprint.
The new Norton Rose Group will have a turnover of more than GBP420m (AUD864m) and in excess of 1800 fee earners in 29 offices worldwide. In the Asia Pacific region, it will bring together more than 700 fee earners operating from 12 offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Brisbane, Canberra, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Melbourne, Perth, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo.
From 1 January 2010, Norton Rose Group will be led by Group Chief Executive Peter Martyr, the current Norton Rose LLP Chief Executive, and Deputy Group Chief Executive Don Boyd. Full press here.
Bets are on to see which law firm is the first to trial or implement the new Microsoft Surface in their reception area, their conference rooms, their training rooms, or in that IT savvy partner's office.
Although the legal world may struggle to find a true value based application (i.e. more than simply the gimmick factor) in the next few months for this technology (and not through lack of trying by some early adopters), we do see some small possibilities around using Surface in client meetings for live document reviews, and also using it to demonstrate matter workflows to clients. There perhaps may even be ways to use it in the areas of court preparation (but again, it is a stretch).
There are also some real possibility around knowledge sharing, story telling and demonstrations for KM training purposes which shouldn't go untested, and also lawyer/trainee professional training and moots (and other lecture forums) which should be thrown into the mix of possibilities.
All this is based on getting the technology at a reasonable price however - they are currently priced at around $US12,500 for the 30 inch touchscreen panel, and convincing the powers that be that this is more than simply a gimmick.
Australia's Lonely Planet has been an early adopter of the technology for their stores. Full article here. Is there scope for using it within the non-retail/professional services market?
As above, it is a stretch to think that in today's economy a law firm will be running to embrace this, but we will no doubt see one or two firms work with Microsoft to find a way.
Move forward ten years and take a stab at guessing what the application will be used for - perhaps all our desks will be embedded with the technology, allowing for (among many other things) mobile and BlackBerry synchronisation as soon as you walk into your office and put the device down on your table!
