VQ has been asked to contribute with our view on the future of legal services and the development from legal KM to legal online services on VoxPopuLII, a blog run by the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. The purpose of VoxPopuLII is to share interesting new ideas by innovative researchers and developers on developments in legal information systems research, digital legal publishing, and free access to law.
In the post VQ discusses the future of legal service, with a specific focus on how the current changes on the legal market demand a more strategic approach to knowledge management and efficient working processes and how technology is becoming more and more important as a way to develop new innovative ways to deliver legal services.
Particular attention is given to the following four major drivers for change on the legal market:
- Regulatory changes;
- New kind of competition;
- New client demands; and
- The collaboration trend.
Analysing what is happening on the legal market with the new trends with LPOs, new legal service providers, virtual law firms and the increased collaboration and knowledge sharing within legal networks, you can see that clients are becoming more and more aware of new tools and processes and will start demanding their lawyers to adapt to the new technology to become more efficient. Law firms, therefore, have to review the value of their services and the use of technology to streamline processes and take better advantage of a firm’s accumulated knowledge to ensure better service than their competitors.
For the first time in legal history, there is now a true incentive for law firms to deliver results faster, through the right combination of internal and external resources and the better use of IT as a competitive edge.
This means that law firms have to take a new strategic approach to knowledge management as a business development tool, a way of delivering the changes and innovation that will help law firms to survive and thrive in today’s dynamic and uncertain business and professional landscape.
Read the complete blog post here: Future of Legal Services and the Development of Legal Knowledge Management