Many law firms in Canada (and the United States) use Interwoven for their document management system (DMS). Interwoven is a very robust DMS that can manage large volumes of documents while keeping good version control and honoring security settings.

Like many organisations, law firms have an odd relationship with information.

And because they know it's important they are loathe to delete anything (just in case)...

Multiple repositories and systems, multiple offices and locations, multiple content processes and procedures leads to an excess of information and knowledge - all of it potentially valuable, but much of it virtually impossible to actually find at the time a lawyer or information professional needs it.

Innerhalb von nur 3 Monaten wurde MindServer Legal bei Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP als kanzleiweites Knowledge Management- und Retrieval-System eingeführt. Die Lösung greift unter dem internen Namen "KnowledgeSearch" auf sämtliche Datenbestände der Kanzlei zu und verbindet so die allgemeine Dokumentenverwaltung, eine KM-Bibliothek, ein Managementsystem, das gesamte Intranet sowie externe Quellen wie z.B. Rechtsdatenbanken.

"Im Legal-Bereich verfügen wir über eine einzigartige Expertise und die Auszeichnung belegt, das wir wissen, was unsere Kunden wollen und dies auch konsequent umsetzen."

Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP hat darüberhinaus noch den Preis als "Best Knowledge Management und Information Team of the Year" - auch für den Einsatz von MindServer Legal.

The next session at the Ark KM Conference saw Mark Young, Managing Partner, and John S. Gillies, Director of Practice Support, at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP address development of a KM strategy.

He indicated that he often hears partners claim they could get more work in the door if they had more time; KM offered them more time, and hence more opportunity for more business.

He also feels that KM provides an opportunity to demonstrate greater value to clients.

Headshift designed a collaboration and knowledge-sharing application for the international law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. We integrated social media tools such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and RSS feeds to improve the general flow of information within the organisation - letting employees collaborate better and share their insights more easily.

The main issue: Individual actions should benefit the community

What constitutes a social media platform?

With the high levels of innovation and complexity in banking products, our client wanted to ensure that people involved in the negotiation and implementation of associated transactions could stay abreast of change and be better connected with relevant expertise and information.  In that context, we have been working in a consultancy capacity with members of pilot groups from distinct operational areas and communities, to identify key processes/business needs to be supported by well-positioned social tools.

Implementing social tools that fit the use cases

Our recommended solution combined, amongst other things, a wiki, shared blogs, book-marking, tagging and personalised pages.

The term "Web 2.0" describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

Enterprise social software, also known as Enterprise 2.0, is a term describing social software used in "enterprise" (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, this generation of software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure. The association AIIMdefines Enterprise 2.0 as a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise.