Real practice management takes work in setting up, to save much more work throughout your career. Here are some thoughts on the subject.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge management in a law practice? I have 30 years of experience, and without knowledge management, it has little value. What is the knowledge being managed?Thousands of files contain a tremendous amount of recyclable information. Memos of law, sophisticated documents, abstracts of title, pleadings, interrogatories. And my library has many treatises, useful articles, copies of zoning ordinances, CLE materials. I have thousands of contacts, including clients, vendors, experts, specialists. In my practice, I benefit from a good number of specialized websites, providing legal research, government agency information, and deed and plan images. In other words, my practice has generated a huge amount of accumulated information, which is useless if I can't access it. The value of this information is greatly leveraged if my associates, Paralegals and secretaries can access it easily, especially if they don't have to rely on my failing memory to locate things. Effective knowledge management relies on good filing practices, both electronic and hard copy. See FILE NUMBER.Anything you may someday want to retrieve or remember goes into your knowledge database. A simple flat file database will do, or you can use MS Access, or a spreadsheet. I find that the Library function of Amicus is simply wonderful for this purpose. See PRACTICE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS. For example, when I prepare, say, a Special Needs Trust, I tell Amicus library about it. When my associate has a client that needs such a document, a glance in the library and a click of the button and it is on her screen. Bankruptcy website? Click Launch and you're there. Title abstract? Give the inquiry screen the address, owner or plan number and there's the file. Seamlessly integrated with my six thousand contacts, calendar, document generation, time spent, phone and email logs, PCLaw and my Palm PDA, the database provides me with knowledge management that gives my firm a tremendous competitive advantage.© Robert R. Howard, 2005.
