As staff moved to remote working, some firms found there were difficulties accessing the information and documents they needed, either because they were organised for an office-based environment or because of a lack of structured approach to KM.
According to Javier Magaña, technical director at Lexsoft Systems, which provides IT and business process solutions to the legal sector across Europe, United States and Latin America, firms have now realised the importance of KM and the subject will climb higher up the agenda in 2021, particularly in mid-tier law firms.
Magaña said: ‘Long considered a luxury that only the large law firms with deep pockets could afford, technology will level the playing field for mid-tier law firms.
‘With the availability of highly affordable KM and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies today, these growing firms will consider the adoption of this business function as they navigate through the uncertainties in the current economic environment. The ability to detect, structure and re-use valuable pieces of knowledge across information repositories (eg document management system, practice management, external sources) and access them at the point of need and on-demand―much like the Netflix and Amazon environments―will become business critical.’
