Late in June the International Legal Technology Association published its annual knowledge management "white paper," Knowledge Management: Bridging People, Information, and Processes . The issue was coordinated by Wilson Sonsini's Chris Boyd.
It contains two articles directly addressing knowledge management and alternative fee arrangements. My article, also published separately here , has the subject line title. I address how knowledge management people, tools, and approaches can support legal work in a business world in which an increasing percentage of even high-end legal work is undertaken on a fixed-fee basis. Peter Krakauer's complimentary article addresses how knowledge management can support a firm's efforts in addressing and adapting to alternative fee arrangements.
The overall tone of the white paper is hopeful. Both Peter and I, and the KM survey, suggest that knowledge management, with its focus on the need to make attorneys more efficient and effective, will be more prominent and of greater strategic value in a world in which a dollar saved is a dollar earned.
