|
|
The effect of the knowledge management techniques in legal practice, aiding lawyers
and officials to organize, represent and manage knowledge
All our courses have been
transferred to Knowledge Management International
University
 Online
Course: Knowledge Management in Organizations |
|
|
Characteristics of legal knowledge
Law thinking is highly structured. It is structured in such a way that the knowledge needed to perform a legal task can be found and used more easily and be better available to the performers of legal tasks.
|
|
| |
|
|
The lawyer and tacit knowledge
Law is written, sentences are written. These are documents of public domain. Public domain is explicit knowledge... information.
What a client requires from the law office is the lawyers' skills and experience, the integration of their practical, relevant, applied know-how. Knowing the law (company law, for instance) is not in itself sufficient to enable a lawyer to transfer property. The practical application of the law requires much more than tacit knowledge: it requires know-how. Law firms are, therefore, know-how businesses. The law firms competitive advantage is precisely the accumulation, distribution and ready availability of the collective know-how, the firm's knowledge: a combination of people, knowledge and experience, and that is what people look for in a law firm.
This know-how is made of knowledge services (transaction specific); knowledge about the client's social environment (business and/or family, history); geographical (the community in which the law firm operates). This know-how is valuable for clients.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Tacit knowledge (know-how) has the following characteristics:
|
|
 |
you acquire it mostly by yourself;
|
|
|
it is practically useful;
|
|
|
it is about how to do things.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Therefore tacit knowledge is expertise, and a result of personal learning. It is a personal asset.
Applications of
Knowledge Master (Knowledge representation and management) in law practice:
|
|
|
|
|
Case management and case strategy, case modeling;
|
|
|
Decision support systems;
|
|
|
Legal Information Systems;
|
|
|
Courtroom and jury support systems;
|
|
|
Online dispute settlement;
|
|
|
Sentencing support systems;
|
|
|
Document management;
|
|
|
Conflict management. |
Knowledge Master's
resources that make legal knowledge management
possible:
|
|
|
|
|
Categorization;
|
|
|
Searching:
- Searching inside the
knowledge base:
- concepts,
categories, relations
- Interactive navigation of the knowledge base:
semantic searching
- Full text
- Phonetic.
- Internet search: create a cognitive visual interface for
the web
- Multiple relations to Internet
- Automatic recognition of relevance.
|
|
|
Export/Import the knowledge base from/to many
formats:
formatted text (Word,
rtf),
structured text, flat text, html, XML,
XTM (ISO/IEC 13250), image. Knowledge
created with
Knowledge Master can be reused in other applications.
|
|
|
Interactive creation of the knowledge base
from text; |
|
|
Paths in the knowledge base; |
|
|
Direct access to the represented knowledge through questions
and answers |
|
|
Use
templates to facilitate the start of standard diagrams. |
|
|
Arrange the knowledge bases in layers for ease of
analysis and neatness. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Teaching and learning law contents through knowledge management
The structured nature of law and legal documents in general and the logic that handles legal reasoning, naturally proposes knowledge representation and management as a resource to teach law students to comprehend, analyze, and draw conclusions from information. Many standard techniques from knowledge practices can be used to deliver legal knowledge to students, like cause & effect and many other specialized diagrams.
With the rise of the 'knowledge economy', knowledge management has become all the rage. In a law firm or organization, knowledge management is not a support function: it is the very essence of a law firm.
Knowledge Master
is already being used in legal information
structuring support by
ITTIG
in Florence, Italy.
ITTIG
(Institute
of Legal Information Theory and Techniques)
belongs to the Italian National Research Council.
|
|
| |
|
You may also see Project Management
with knowledge management techniques and strategies
Excerpts from the book
Knowledge Management in Education -II edition
(in Spanish language),
by Virgilio Hernandez Forte, published by Alfaomega
Grupo Editor, Mexico, 2007.
|
![]() |
