Burges Salmon modernizes knowledge management with iManage

The solution

Never work on data strategy in isolation

Burges Salmon chose iManage and its partner Lexsoft to implement iManage Knowledge Unlocked knowledge management system (with iManage Insight) and Lexsoft T3, a taxonomy and curation workflow solution. Pairing these two solutions meant that Burges Salmon PSLs would have a robust submission application and process to provide their new or updated assets, while legal teams would be able to search quickly and easily discover curated knowledge resources.

But first, they had to build the system, define procedures, then design and roll out the training.

Combining roles across functions was critical to their approach. So Aldridge pulled an expert team together. A project board, partner representative, knowledge team, PSLs, a solution architect, a project manager, and a test manager were all needed to ensure success. A core group of PSLs fronted the key decision-making group and were instrumental in accelerating project delivery timelines. Carlos García-Egocheaga, Lexsoft CEO and Jack Shepherd, principal business consultant for iManage, contributed strategic and technical guidance for their respective platforms. The core group of PSLs continues to have a key business-as-usual role in helping the knowledge team with governance of the taxonomy to ensure that it remains well structured as it evolves.

Louise McNess, a Project Manager for Burges Salmon, stressed that “understanding and embedding strong supplier relationships, holding early strategy sessions, and ensuring the full appreciation and documentation of the key business requirements were vital building blocks to the project’s success.” Following this approach, the team spent just one month on document preparation and less than two weeks on actual configuration and migration.

McNess recommends that project managers taking on a project like this:

• Identify key stakeholders early and monitor their involvement.
• Secure continued business buy-in to ensure project delivery success.
• Assess change impact and devise a robust business change strategy.
• Track and measure the overall user experience and system optimization.

Ensuring a discovery search to use metadata across systems meant going back to the fundamentals. Lexsoft T3 would extend the submission process, granting the capability to add enhanced metadata to documents, including tags, taxonomies, and associated texts in a document profile, enabling highly relevant search results even at a granular level. García-Egocheaga specified that T3 supports many different workflows and can interact with other internal or external web services to acquire information and add it to the document profile. Knowledge Unlocked (with Insight) then reveals the information attached to the document profile. Together, these tools enable lawyers and PSLs to filter and search based on document type, legal topic, department, or sector — a critical requirement of the project.

Because Knowledge Unlocked and T3 are currently stored on premises, a pipeline service from iManage pushes the content and metadata from the documents stored in iManage Cloud to the on-prem iManage index. This includes the document contents, default iManage DMS metadata, additional metadata, and taxonomies achievable with Knowledge Unlocked. The enriched document data goes well beyond simply matching a search term: it also identifies the relevant area of the business and recent review data, providing greater context to lawyers and PSLs.

Aldridge observes that the firm’s document and knowledge systems perform different jobs. “In the DMS you have everything,” she says. “But, as well as precedents, every firm has examples of work product that they’re especially proud of, that they’d give to a colleague or new hire to use as a starting point. The idea is to crystallize this know-how and add it to the knowledge management system in its very best state. Using the new system, our lawyers can start from the best work the firm has done.” In the end, that’s a large part of what good knowledge management is all about.

Business outcomes

More value, greater adoption, and more future-ready than ever

Project leads for this initiative agree the system has been well-received and users are finding it highly intuitive. PSLs are enabled with a state-of-the-art submission process reflecting the needs across the business, and practices have discovered huge value in having relevant, connected data like Thomson Reuters and Lexis just a click away. Because so many teams contributed to this effort, there is more buy-in and better use of Knowledge Unlocked with Insight than the old system. Aldridge says partners who don’t have PSLs have started asking how they can use Knowledge Unlocked in their areas — the best sign of success that a knowledge leader can hope for.

“You don’t need a battalion of PSLs to manage a knowledge management system,” says Aldridge. “Any firm with a structure around knowledge or a document management system can find a way to surface their best material. It’s not about how large your KM team is, it is about how well you engage with your professionals.”

Looking ahead

Thanks to this project, the board sees technology as a clear business enabler and knowledge as a necessary business tool. There is talk about connecting finance and fixed-fee billing to get more value than ever out of their knowledge management system.

“This has been a fantastic project delivery initiative to be involved in, and we were in incredibly safe hands with iManage and Lexsoft,” lauds McNess.