Saturday, September 07, 2002

Business Processing Re-engineering for Law Firms. Which KM system should I concentrate on? Which KM system should be prioritized? With the number of information systems (e.g., document management, intranet content management, case management, records management, time entry management, practice development management, and e-mail/groupware systems) currently used in law firms, it's hard to answer these questions. Rather than concentrate on the implementation of information systems, John S. Edwards and Robert I. Akroyd, examine a radical "process-based" approach for change in English law firms. In Strategic Process Re-engineering in Legal Service Management, Edwards and Ackroyd discuss the actual work performed in law firms. Building on Hammer and Champy's ideas in Reengineering the Corporation: a Manifesto for Business Revolution, Edwards and Akroyd break down legal services into it's core parts: (1) getting the knowledge (2) getting the work (3) doing the work (4) getting paid for the work In a typical English firm, "doing the work" [number (3) above] can be further broken down into eleven key steps: (1) a client consults with the law firm (2) the law firm diagnoses the problem (3) the law firm drafts a "client care" letter (i.e. a proposal or retention letter) setting out the work to be done (4) the client decides whether to continue (5) if the client decides to go forward, the law firm divides up the work amongst the practice group members (6) the law firm does the legal research (7) the law firm expresses it's opinion to the client (8) the client decides whether to continue (9) if the client decides to go forward, the law firm divides up the work amongst the practice group members (10) the law firm implements the client's instructions Like Edwards and Akroyd, Martin Apistola and Anja Oskamp define a similar "task-based" top-down KM methodology. But in Preparing Knowledge Management for Law Practice, (click on Downloads: By Author), the Apistola and Oskamp astutely recognize that some legal tasks don't need to be re-engineered "when there are no problems performing the task" (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). For other "task-based" analyses of law firms, read Curt Canfield's (Practice Group Leader of Hildebrandt's TechGroup) article: Knowledge Management: Making it Work [excited utterances] comment [] 11:23:24 PM

The Imperial Presidency vs. the Imperial Judiciary "IN its aggressive conduct of the war on terrorism's domestic front, the Bush administration has encountered few obstacles from Congress or public opinion. Rather, it is federal judges, across the ideological spectrum, who have responded with skepticism, alarm or downright hostility in recent weeks to the administration's sweeping claims of unbridled executive authority to hold secret deportation hearings, label and incarcerate "enemy combatants" without access to lawyers or judges, and commingle activities of counterintelligence agents and criminal prosecutors." comment [] 10:55:57 PM

Debate Crystallizes on War, Rights (washingtonpost.com) "Perhaps the toughest rebuke came last week, when a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court said the administration's arguments for secret deportation hearings were "undemocratic" and "in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the Framers of our Constitution." " comment [] 7:54:00 AM

An American Justice (washingtonpost.com) "Federal judge Robert G. Doumar has one word for the Bush administration's argument that an American citizen, captured in Afghanistan and confined in a Navy brig here, doesn't have the right to see a lawyer: "Idiotic."" comment [] 7:46:47 AM

The Recording Industry Association of America: American Outlaw "Pending legislation sponsored by Reps. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) and Howard Coble (R-N.C.) would allow the industry to hack into offenders' computers to disrupt file sharing, while the industry is also putting out fake music files to try to discourage downloads. " [Washington Post]  Thanks to Tomalak's Realm. Anyone who hacks into my computer deserves no more consideration than a thief in the night. The recording industry has declared war on us, it is time for us to take the war to them.  A good first step would be to boycott recordings produced by any member of the Recording Industry Association of America.  This lobby should be regarded as an outlaw, and Americans should not willingly provide it with the financial means to undermine our laws and our freedom. comment [] 12:19:55 AM

© Copyright 2002 Bill Day. Last update: 10/3/2002; 7:25:23 AM.