Recent Articles

More Sharing, Not Less

Mary Abraham
March 10, 2010 11:00

Rees Morrison reports that clients get unhappy when their lawyers have internal meetings. According to some of the general counsel he works with, these meetings are seen as unnecessary additions to the bill. Meanwhile, their outside counsel know that these meetings have been a traditional means of...

The State of Law Firm KM 2010

Mary Abraham
March 09, 2010 23:30

The Knowledge Management Peer Group of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) is once again sponsoring a survey to determine the current state of law firm knowledge management. Given the upheavals in the legal industry of the last few years, it will be interesting to see what if any...

Rough Diamond

Mary Abraham
March 09, 2010 11:09

$35.5 million is a lot to spend on potential, but that’s the record-setting price a private jewelry retailer recently paid for a 507-carat rough diamond.  According to the Associated Press report, The stone — as big as a chicken egg and weighing just over 100 grams (3.53 ounces) — was esti...

Think Big

Mary Abraham
March 08, 2010 11:00

Do you think small? Or, do you have a compelling vision that gives your work purpose? What gets you out of bed in the morning other than the knowledge that someone expects you to punch the clock at the office? Some have reported that in their view the safest course through the economic downturn was...

Acrobatics

Mary Abraham
March 05, 2010 11:05

Back flips, somersaults, handstands. These acrobats did it all. Standard fare for an acrobat, you say? Perhaps. But these guys were doing it in a New York City subway train. Have you ever tried doing a rapid series of back flips in the narrow aisle of an express train? Me neither. Perhaps...

Radio Silence

Mary Abraham
March 04, 2010 14:54

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I haven’t been a regular writer lately. In fact, last month I published the fewest number of posts of any full month since I started blogging in 2008. Please don’t take this as a sign of my disinterest. Radio silence can occur...

After the Social Media Bubble

Mary Abraham
February 28, 2010 15:53

I had nearly finished drafting the legal documents for a hot new online start-up when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.  With the sudden end to the stratospheric stock prices for these new media companies, everyone felt free to criticize.  Do you remember how the bricks-and-mortar supporters d...

KM Requires Luck

Mary Abraham
February 16, 2010 18:30

Over the last few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with and talking to some fantastic law firm knowledge management experts. They work in a variety of firms, with a wide array of technology tools and organizational cultures. These most successful of all law firm knowledge managers...

The Personal KM Primer

Mary Abraham
February 09, 2010 05:09

What would happen if we turned our operating model on its head? What if we focused on individuals instead of the organization? What if we took Davenport and Prusak at their word and worked to make a reality of their claim that “knowledge management must be part of everyone’s...

The KM Dream Team

Mary Abraham
February 08, 2010 04:24

When we hire, we sometime focus too much on what lies within the boundaries of the job description rather than on what lies within the person we are interviewing. Granted, it’s extraordinarily difficult to assess fully a person you are meeting for the first time, but you nonetheless have to...