Practical LawConferences

The page will be updated with further details on the agenda once they are confirmed.

• Exploring and examining the changing KM landscape
• Interesting highlights from successful KM programmes from other industries
• What does the future hold for KM, and for us as KM professionals?

Assessing its impact on the relationship between Knowledge Managers, boards and internal customers

In the last five years the role of KM has gained increasing significance in law firms. Old demarcations have been broken down. In some firms knowledge has merged with Learning & Development, Risk, Marketing or IT. In other firms separate units have been set up to drive business improvement and innovation. Some firms have dedicated PSls others have fee earning knowledge champions. Some PSLs are a central resource, others report to their practice areas. This session will explore how different knowledge functions have addressed these challenges, shaped and aligned with their firm’s strategy and gained influence at Board level.

• Learn how other firms organise their knowledge management function
• Compare different approaches to shaping and aligning with business strategy
• Gaining influence at the Board
• Challenge your current organisational structure and reflect on relationship between knowledge, other functions and the Board

• Understand your identity and shared values
• Develop a shared vision and attitude to internal customers and clients which is aligned with organisational goals
• Develop an appropriate campaign of messaging and communications emphasising the strategic imperative
• Demonstrate the value and benefits through story telling to effect customer engagement tool and change
• Creating a culture of knowledge – and transforming how works get done

Understanding your clients’ needs will help your firm better understand where to spend your resources.

This session will offer delegates the opportunity to find out:

• Determining who are your clients
• Are KMs doing enough to satisfy and listen to client’s real needs?
• Gaining a better understanding of the drivers and motivations from in-house counsel. What do they need?
• What influences client buying decisions?
• Are KMs using their resources best and if not, what else can they do?

• Procurement professionals and law firm selection
• What do clients really value?
• The role of KM in winning/retaining clients

• Does the growth in service delivery centres and near-shoring affect the way firms are tackling KM?
• Do these centres have distinct requirements when it comes to their KM needs? How should KM professionals adapt?
• Are firms locating KM support in remote centers and if so what are the opportunities and challenges?
• When firms locate non-traditional fee earners in remote centers, how can their KM needs be addressed and how can they best contribute to the firm’s KM resources?

• Examining the rise of LPM/LPI initiatives and their relationship with the KM function
• The role of the client
• Challenges and opportunities

• Understanding what it is all about and what is available
• Examining the extent to which Knowledge Managers are using Big data to predict outcomes
• Leveraging the internal and external benefits of artificial intelligence
• How you manage expectations of the future of knowledge culture?
• Determining the implications on privacy and intellectual property
• Lessons learnt and successes and failures

• How are KM teams looking to support the growing number of contract lawyer business attached to law firms that are cropping up?
• Aligning your new joiners with a different mind set
• How do you get people up to speed quickly and integrated with a firm’s way of working?
• How do you capture knowledge from these teams given the transient nature of their work?

Several studies have indicated that a large portion work written off is connected to the drafting process

• What techniques and tool kits are teams using to streamline this process?
• How are KM teams positioning themselves to be part of the solution?

This session will look at how firms are facing globalisation from a KM perspective with case studies of firms who have merged and / or moved into new territories or markets.

• M&A and overcoming HR issues for Knowledge Managers
• How do I find out about how to instruct a law firm in new countries?
• How can knowledge support lateral teams or lateral hires?
• How much centralisation is desirable versus local knowledge?

• Securing buy-in from the executive team.
• Politics and scope creep.
• Project planning for success.
• Partnering with vendors , how do you engage with external agencies to build it?
• Pricing, tracking and reporting.
• Developing technology that can be resold.

• The evolving skills needed by knowledge workers in the future
• Dedicated and distributed knowledge teams
• Training and development of knowledge teams
• Knowledge workers as leaders of change
• Potential futures in KM

Hear from Knowledge Managers and their biggest successes and challenges in their career. Find out in hindsight what they would have done differently.