My review of Colin Levy’s new book The Legal Tech Ecosystem: Innovation, Advancement & the Future of Law Practice is now available at LLRX.com.
In brief, I like the book a lot, though I wish Levy had done more to directly address knowledge management issues. Levy focuses on six problem (which I prefer to call “opportunity”) areas:
- e-discovery
- contract management
- legal research
- project management
- process improvement
- data management
Data management, as Levy uses the phrase, seems to be about managing client information. Its primary purpose is “to track the performance of legal teams and service providers, which can help legal departments identify areas for improvement.
No doubt this function is important, but it is very different from knowledge management for lawyers, which I like to describe as helping lawyers “know what you know.” My experience is that if you have good knowledge management, in the form of having command of your law firm’s internal information, everything else becomes easier.
I hope my next book, Knowledge Management for Lawyers: Building A Culture of Success, will increase awareness of the importance of this topic. I’m aiming for a Spring 2024 publication date.