Connected intelligence can be a core competitive advantage for the modern law firm, but, according to Lee Bryant, the communication and collaboration tools that are being used are in need of an update




The big lesson of Web 2.0 is the power of network effects in large groups. The value of tools such as blogs, wikis, social tagging and bookmarking, and social networking lies not just in the software, but also the connected networks in which these tools operate.



A wiki for one person is a useful note-taking tool. A wiki for thousands of people can become a major encyclopaedia, simply by joining together the small-scale actions of each individual user. This networked approach is opening up a range of social affordances that previous generations of enterprise systems could not provide.



These tools are starting to find a place within large and mid-tier law firms, which hire the brightest and the best, pay them well and demand high performance. But the communication and collaboration tools firms provide are often stuck in the 1990s paradigm of basic desktop tools augmented by centralised web-based storage and collaboration systems that do nothing to generate network effects from individual activity. These tools are a source of frustration for lawyers, who are increasingly asking why they cannot have tools that are as simple, useful and powerful as those they access for free on the Internet.



Cleverness adds value

IT applications inside companies are being transformed as they draw lessons from the innovation taking place in the consumer Web 2.0 world. For example, tired and inflexible taxonomy classification systems are being augmented and, in some cases, replaced by social tagging and emergent metadata. Over-structured group-collaboration tools are giving way to lightweight wiki-based team and group spaces. Costly internal newsletters are becoming blogs, one-way intranet publishing is being opened up using wiki-based systems, RSS is starting to replace email alerts and internal social networks are taking forward the concept of expertise location and 'know-who'.



These individual applications can potentially bring real benefits and efficiencies to law firms. In addition, there is a case to be made in terms of attracting and retaining talent, especially among younger joiners who have grown up as Internet natives rather than digital immigrants. But arguably, the greatest potential for transformation lies in the way these tools and the networks that support them can facilitate the development of organisational collective intelligence.



In the short term, this will reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of current awareness, business intelligence and information management in general. Over the longer term, this will be a major driver of differentiation in client service and help build more personalised, conversational relationships with key clients at the high end of service delivery.



Within large firms, but also in more specialised smaller firms looking for thought-leadership in a particular market, there is potential to exploit the process of intelligence gathering, analysis, insight and social filtering of information that already takes place, albeit in a largely unconnected and intangible form. Think of the amount of research, reading and analysis that takes place within a firm every day. How are the fruits of this work surfaced for others to share? On the whole, they are not.



Turning blogging into money

The blogosphere provides a lesson. Bloggers typically track a number of RSS feeds that make up their personal radar, including blog feeds, specialist publications, searches and alerts and the output of specific people's activity on social bookmarking sites or social networks. This acts as a kind of social reading network, where popular or important topics are amplified by the network and hot topics 'bubble up' to reach a wider audience. Over time, bloggers typically report that information they need starts to find them rather than the other way around. If their personal radar is good enough, they can rely on their network to bring important information to their attention.



Within a law firm, this could work very well given existing information processing behaviours. We foresee an information landscape where raw sources flow through the firm in a common format, such as RSS, and lawyers, associates and support staff subscribe to certain topics, people, client matters or specific sources. When somebody finds something useful, they bookmark the item for their own use, generating a 'social signal' of relevance, making it more likely that others will find the same information. As more people help pick out useful information from the general flow, this can be re-purposed into specific feeds or selected information for practice areas, teams and even individual lawyers, each of whom can also add their own insight and analysis to this information, and then pump it back out into the firm using a blog or a wiki page.



This kind of connected, social intelligence is what the so-called Web 2.0 era is all about. The idea is that by aggregating the simple actions of individuals in large groups of people, we can create shared value and an evolving body of knowledge, effectively turning a law firm into a highly efficient, high quality social reading and filtering network.



Inside the firm, this approach could have huge benefits. But in the future I believe that allowing clients access to a selection of the data flow will be a source of competitive advantage and client retention, by letting clients tap into the collective intelligence of the firm.



At a time when low-level services are facing the danger of commoditisation, I find it surprising that much law firm marketing and client service continues to revolve around the blunt instrument of newsletters. The technology already exists to offer tailored, personalised feeds of news and analysis from within the firm, and I think we will see more firms adopting this in the future. Sharing news, tips and market insight securely with clients in close to real time is a great example of the power of 'weak ties' in social networks, and is a great way to show the value of the firm.



Lee Bryant is a director of Headshift, which has worked with law firms such as Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters.