Doug Cornelius .com

As reported in The Lawyer . com, the Eversheds has grabbed a big chunk of legal work from Tyco. It sounds like the key to getting the work was putting an electronic approval process in place. Using their Global Account Management System (GAMS), which requires the lawyer at Eversheds to fill out a quick form in GAMS before starting a new project for Tyco. Then, the general counsel signs-off on the work before the lawyer starts work.

It looks like integrating the law firm’s technology and integrating the law firm’s business process with the client’s technology and business process can get work for law firms. Sounds like a great case for law firm knowledge management.

I put together this list of reading materials for knowledge management. Obviously, there are few books that are focused on law firm knowledge management.

Cluetrain Manifesto. Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knowledge Management. Melissie Clemmons

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Etienne Wenger

Effective Knowledge Management for Law Firms. Matthew Parsons

Everything is Miscellaneous. David Weinberger

Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management. Peter Ferdinand Drucker, David Garvin, Dorothy Leonard, Susan Straus, John Seely Brown

If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice. Carla O’dell, C. Jackson Grayson

Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations. Thomas A. Stewart

The Knowledge-Creating Company. Ikujiro Nonaka in the Harvard Business Review (1991)

Knowledge Leadership: The Art and Science of the Knowledge-based Organization. Steven Cavaleri and Sharon Seivert

Knowledge Management and the Smarter Lawyer. Gretta Rusanow, Esq.

Learning to Fly: Practical Knowledge Management from Leading and Learning Organizations. Chris Collison, Geoff Parcell

The Long Tail. Chris Anderson

We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. Barry Libert

Wikipatterns: Stewart Mader

Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak

Let me know what else you think should be on this list.

The editors of Law Practice magazine from the ABA posed a scenario of a law firm contemplating the purchase of a client relationship management system. I dispensed advice along with (a) Ross Fishman, Strategic Marketing and Positioning Consultant, (b) Simon Chester, Law Firm Partner and Business and IT Lawyer and (c) the delightful Connie Crosby, Law Librarian and Knowledge Management Speaker in the Law Practice Case Study.

Is CRM Worth It? The Pros and Cons of Client Relationship Management

Below is my material from Real Estate Development From Beginning to End in Massachusetts.

The document is hosted on a site called Docstoc.

We are revamping some aspects of the real estate group’s training program. We are using the concept of a college catalog, with numbered designations for each course and summary of what the course is about. We also wanted to give it a brand element. We were thinking of something like: Goodwin Procter Real Estate University.

Unfortunately, we came across Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 266, Section 89:

“Any individual, school, association, corporation or institution of learning, not having lawful authority to confer degrees, using the designation of “university” or “college” shall be punished by a fine of one thousand dollars.”

So, you cannot use a “college” or “university” designation in Massachusetts unless you are actually a college or university. I guess that leaves: Goodwin Procter Real Estate Academy.

[cross-posted from my KM Space blog on law firm knowledge management.]

We are revamping some aspects of the real estate group’s training program. We are using the concept of a college catalog, with numbered designations for each course and summary of what the course is about. We also wanted to give it a brand element. We were thinking of something like: Goodwin Procter Real Estate University.

Unfortunately, we came across Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 266, Section 89:

“Any individual, school, association, corporation or institution of learning, not having lawful authority to confer degrees, using the designation of “university” or “college” shall be punished by a fine of one thousand dollars.”

So, you cannot use a “college” or “university” designation in Massachusetts unless you are actually a college or university. I guess that leaves: Goodwin Procter Real Estate Academy.

Many knowledge management texts draw a distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge. With one being knowledge in someone’s head and the other being knowledge that is written down somewhere. Frankly, I find these terms so abstract that I have forgotten which term is which.

And, I think this is the wrong distinction to make. The knowledge is either findable by your computer or it is not findable by your computer.

By finding the knowledge I mean finding the knowledge itself or finding the person who has the knowledge. Certainly all knowledge within a firm is not going to be transferred into a form that is findable by a computer. That is why it is important to identify subject matter experts and make them findable by a computer search.

Knowledge written down on a piece of paper and thrown in a file does not do anyone any good. I have first-hand experience at this. (I think everyone has first-hand experience at this). Last week, I was cleaning up a stack on my desk and found some hand-written notes from a conference I went to last year. It was good stuff, but it had been lost. (One of the reasons I now blog conferences.) I had some vague recollections of the conference, but the written notes brought back a whole waterfall of recollections, action items and information. The notes were written but had not done me any good until I accidentally stumbled on them. They certainly were not doing any good for the rest of my firm.

A file saved on your local computer does not make the knowledge in that file findable by anyone but you.

Sending out an email makes the knowledge potentially more findable. But, you as the sender and all of recipients are going to end up keeping that email in different places, in different folders with different meta-data. As the sender, the email ends up in your list of sent items. As the recipient, the email lands in my inbox. Then it may stay there, or I may transfer it to a different location. Or I may delete it. Most likely any two recipients are going to treat the email in completely different ways. Email makes it more findable, but the parties to the email end up having to find it in different ways.

If the knowledge is not findable by my computer, then I have to know it myself or have to send out a blast email asking if anyone knows about it. Of course the responses end-up in my email or voice mail, being findable only by me.

Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport squared off today on a debate on Enterprise 2.0. This was rematch from their debate back in June at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.

I was disappointed that the webinar was less of a webinar and just a conference call. However, that lack of visuals allowed me to jump into a twitter and have a discussion with Luis Suarez, Dennis Howlett, Ami Chitwood, kellypuffs, Steve Matthews and others. At the time I was sitting in a conference room with others from my knowledge management department. It was interesting to hear the take of Tom Davenport about how enterprise 2.0 tools are interesting, as I was listening to the debate, discussing it among my team and twittering across the globe at the same time.

As for the debate, I think Davenport was getting hung up on the term “Enterprise 2.0.” His take was that Enterprise 2.0 is an over the top terminology. My take has always been that enterprise 2.0 is short for “web 2.0 applications brought inside the enterprise.” I do not think the tools themselves are going to change the way business operates. The way business operates is already changing. Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams have an excellent presentation on this in Wikinomics. The Web 2.0 suite of tools has created a new way to communicate. One that can be outside the traditional boundaries of business. As the tools do a better job of memorializing the communication, this non-hierarchical communication is on display for everyone to see.

Frankly, I thought Davenport was spending most of his time quibbling over language. For a lawyer like me to think that someone is quibbling over language, it must have been really bad.

McAfee broke Enterprise 2.0 down into three parts. First are the tools. Blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, linking, tagging and robust search do make it much easier to organize, find and disseminate knowledge. Second are the change management issues. The organization needs to embrace a more open method of communication. The firm needs to realize that communication does not happen through a hierarchy. Third are the signals from management. Management must not only permit a more open dialog, they need to encourage it and participate in it themselves.

Everyone on Twitter was focused on the change management and management signals. I think we all agreed that if there was no culture for sharing, then the tools are not going to work. McAfee and Davenport also agreed on this point. Davenport just thought the tools are not all that different than the tools that have been previously been available.

I disagree with Davenport on this point. I think the suite of Enterprise 2.0 tools are much easier to learn and use than existing tools. If they are easier to learn and use then more people are going to use them. Also, I think the Enterprise 2.0 tools are more powerful and offer the individual user much more benefit than existing tools. I use my wikis, because I capture the information in them better for myself than any other tool. The wikis work as a better communication tool within the group because the message is made, synthesized and preserved in the wiki. Emails and word documents cannot do that.

Although I found the debate interesting, I found the reactions and discussion on Twitter to be more interesting and really enhance the experience of the webinar. I have never been a big user of Twitter. But this was great use for it. (An interesting note about Twitter is that it was set up by the same person who originally created blogger: Evan Williams.)

After this latest snowstorm in Boston, I had to drag some fallen limbs into my compost pit. I thought this would be a good time to post on Massachusetts law on trimming your neighbor’s trees.

A neighbor may remove branches extending over a shared property line onto his or her own property. See, e.g., Levine v. Black, 312 Mass. 242 (1942); Michalson v. Nutting, 275 Mass. 232 at 233-234 (1931). Also, the neighbor has no liability for roots growing into your yard and causing damage. The ability to cut back limbs and roots is limited by Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 87, § 11 that provides: “Whoever wilfully, maliciously or wantonly cuts, destroys or injures a tree, shrub or growth which is not his own, standing for any useful purpose, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars.” You can trim the branches and roots back, but you cannot kill the tree. This is the “Massachusetts Rule.”

Massachusetts law does not allow a person to cross or enter a neighbor’s property for these purposes without the neighbor’s consent, nor to remove any branches or other vegetation within the confines of the neighbor’s property. Mass. Gen. Laws ch 242 §7 A party is liable for triple damages for entering the property of another and cutting down trees or branches.

There is also a Massachusetts statute that prohibits cutting, trimming or removing of public shade trees. Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 87. Under this statute public shade trees are defined as “All trees within a public way or on the boundaries thereof…” Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 87 § 1.

The Massachusetts Rule is followed in most states. However, the Washingtonpost.com
is reporting that Virginia just adopted a new rule: Virginia High Court Breaks New Ground on Tree Liability. Apparently in Virginia a tree owner can now be held liable for damage caused by their tree and can forced to cut back roots and limbs if the tree poses a risk of actual harm or an imminent danger. Fancher v. Fagella (9/14/2007):

“Accordingly, we hold that encroaching trees and plants are not nuisances merely because they cast shade, drop leaves, flowers, or fruit, or just because they happen to encroach upon adjoining property either above or below the ground. However, encroaching trees and plants may be regarded as a nuisance when they cause actual harm or pose an imminent danger of actual harm to adjoining property. If so, the owner of the tree or plant may be held responsible for harm caused to [adjoining property], and may also be required to cut back the encroaching branches or roots, assuming the encroaching vegetation constitutes a nuisance. We do not, however, alter existing . . . law that the adjoining landowner may, at his own expense, cut away the encroaching vegetation to the property line whether or not the encroaching vegetation constitutes a nuisance or is otherwise causing harm or possible harm to the adjoining property. Thus, the law of self-help remains intact . . . .”

With the fall-out of the sub-prime loans, there is continuing good news in the commercial markets.

London has surpassed Hong Kong to hold the position of having the world’s highest office rents. According to the NAI Global Market Report, the Mayfair submarket in London’s West End reached $265.31 per square foot. That was an increase of $40 per square foot over the prior 12 months. Hong Kong was close behind at $263.20 per square foot.

New York’s midtown market was up to $225 per square foot. That makes Boston’s $90 per square foot look very affordable. Boston came in third in the United States.

The New York market appears to still be strong. According to Cushman and Wakefield’s year end report, 22.2 million square feet of office space was available at the end of 2007, which is down form the 26 million available at the end of 2006. Manhattan’s overall vacancy rate improved for the year, finishing at 5.7%, down from 6.7% at the end of 2006.