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in a very different way, which will affect traditional law firms competing for clients or staff. Now that their people are accustomed to having better technology at home (or in their pockets) than they do at work, they are beginning to ask difficult questions of their IT colleagues. How will this perfect storm affect KM? There are interesting lessons to be drawn from both sides of the Atlantic that might help us understand the impact on the people, processes and technology involved in law firms' knowledge activities.
The People PSLs: Needed for Productivity: One of the
characteristic distinctions between the American and
British approach to law firm KM used to be that U.S. firms concentrated on technology solutions, while their U.K. counterparts relied on people. This is much less so now. Professional support lawyers (PSLs) had their beginnings in London in the early 1990s, but they can now be found in firms on both sides of the Atlantic. (They are often known by other titles, such as "knowledge lawyers," but for convenience they will be referred to as PSLs here.) The work that PSLs do has also shifted from their original purpose, and it is likely that this shift will continue. The PSL role was initially established by the most
profitable firms as a means of ensuring that their fee- earning lawyers could concentrate on client work. The first PSLs focused primarily on the creation and maintenance of standard documents for their practice
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