* * * 1. Specify which of the following applications are used in your law firm to support work management:

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1 Document Management, Knowledge Management and Quality Control Information Technology has a decisive impact on organizational structures, also in law firms. Document management is a unified system of managing the storage of digital media on a computer, network or web portal. The system inter alia allows the classification of documents and links by sources or subjects. All the material is interacted in an unique taxonomy, thus providing a conceptual framework for analysis or information retrieval. Once inserted in the repository, documents can accordingly be indexed and easily retrieved by the search engine. Law is a knowledge-based profession. Because law firms are knowledge-based organizations, knowledge management becomes critical to their continuing success. For this purpose, knowledge management is the identification and management of processes for leveraging the intellectual capital of organizations over time and place and as such it applies to every job function and process and seeks to capture institutional learning and share best practices for the benefit of the entire firm and clients. According to experts, undertaking a knowledge management initiative within the firm has an important impact on quality, efficiency and client satisfaction. This questionnaire has the purpose of drawing up an overview of the situation in the various countries in order to understand the state of progress and the perception which lawyers have of document and knowledge management. * * * 1. Specify which of the following applications are used in your law firm to support work management: (a) Word processing software; (b) Keeping diary of hearings and procedural deadlines; (c) Calculation of hourly fee rates, fees under professional fee scales or agreed fees; (d) Billing, income management, debt recovery and accounting; (e) Keeping and communication of the documentation provided under anti money laundering laws; (f) Searches in legal data bases, also on-line; (g) Personnel management and work load management; (h) Management of communications with clients; (i) Sending/communication of litigation documentation; (j) Optical storage of documents; (k) Automation of the drawing up of specific documents (e.g. standard contracts or legal pleadings, enforcement procedures);

2 (l) Other. Please specify: 2. Do you believe that Information Technology plays a strategic role in the management of your law firm and in particular in the management of your know-how? (c) Don t know. 3. If you have answered yes to the previous question, what benefits do you believe that the use of document management programs and the new technologies may have in the management of the overall know-how of your law firm: (a) It allows work to be filed in an orderly way and therefore work to be speeded up; (b) As it allows, inter alia, the creation of client data bases and the management of the know-how relative to the client, the intelligent filing of s, the management of mailing lists and the firms accounting for reporting and statistical purposes, the use of document management programs and of new technology plays a strategic role for the marketing of the firm; (c) Other. Please explain: 4. In more general terms, what do you believe the advantages are, for a law firm, from the implementation of knowledge management system? (a) Productivity and efficiency; (b) Knowledge sharing, skill development and training; (c) Competitive advantage, including market visibility; (d) Ability to direct work to skilled professionals; (e) Consistency of work product across offices, departments or practice area; (f) Faster delivery times; (g) Quality control. 2

3 5. Which of the following methods are used in your law firm to put individual know-how at the disposal of all professionals? (a) Updating seminars with internal lecturers; (b) Drawing up of reports, newsletters, and similar; (c) Discussion groups with a view to exchanging work experiences; (d) E-learning platforms; (e) Other. Please specify: 6. Does your firm promote its knowledge management efforts to clients? In particular, does your firm use management control and knowledge management systems to share know-how only among professionals who are members of the firm or also with its clients, for example through telematic communication platforms (virtual practices) or on-line products (e.g. newsletter, newsgroup virtual data room? Web sharing documents through credentials)? Please explain: 7. There are integrated technology that enables law firms to speed up the creation of contracts and pleadings, creating smarter type of precedents or template documents by adding optional clauses and phrases. Guided by virtual interviews this authoring and editing tool permits lawyers to quickly produce a customized document. Depending on the professional s choices or answers, a contract can be drafted, for instance, in favour the interest of one party over the others. Are you favourable to this kind of approach, because, for example, it allows the youngest professionals to work directly on precise and well structured formats drawn up on the basis of more experienced professionals know-how, or are you somewhat sceptical? (c) Please explain: 3

4 8. Technology provides tools to achieve many of the goals of knowledge management, but technology alone cannot do the job. For example, a document management software package can index and protect all documents at the firm quickly and efficiently, but if new young associates and staff are not trained in how to use the software properly, those documents will never be found. Does your firm implement those aspects that are not strictly technology, such as orientation and training, codification of procedures and job descriptions, maintenance of manuals, etc? If so, please explain: 9. Are there any persons in your law firm responsible for keeping the accumulated body of knowledge updated for the purposes of sharing? In your firm, for example, do you have a Knowlegment Management Committee? (a) Yes. If so, please specify the duties for which it is responsible: 10. Work and its level may be measured, in the business and in law firms. The costs of running a professional law firm are obvious, but often, for example, data does not exist to compare personnel costs and their actual productivity or there are no parameters which directly connect the time taken to carry out a specific service and the price for which this is provided. Does your firm use information systems to constantly compare the results of the activities performed and the targets which have previously been established, in particular with reference respectively to: - Professionals? (e.g. in particular, are any annual/bi-annual meetings organised to discuss the targets reached, the efficiency of professionals, job satisfaction, etc)? (c) Don t know. - Clients? (e.g. identifying very faithful, long term and very profitable clients, the profitable but not very faithful clients, faithful clients, who are however not very profitable in the long term etc). 4

5 (c) Don t know. Please explain: 11. Does the time keeping system adopted in your firm interact with the creation of documents (e.g. is it possible to monitor who has produced a certain file and how long he/she has worked on it)? 12. Quality management: quality management means dealing in advance and therefore formalizing the individual moments and phases into which the firm s activity may be split (the processes ); its correct planning allows, inter alia, the price of non compliance to be reduced. The quality of the process will depend, also in a law firm, on planning control and its subsequent implementation: does your firm agree with these principles and, in particular, with the idea of the importance of planning the different phases of professional services? If you have answered yes, please explain: 13. Does your firm implement a quality control plan in which costs and expenses related to photocopies, telephone calls, etc are charged to the specific client and file? 14. Management quality: has your firm studied existing activities/processes, procedures and practices, identifying information flows and internal and external communications means, etc, in order to identify areas for improvement and ways of planning/simplifying activities and services? 5

6 15. Quality certification is certification provided by an independent and autonomous subject in the form of a written assurance that a product process or service complies with the requisites laid down in a reference technical rule. Organizational models based upon ISO 9001, the most widespread reference standard used throughout the world to manage the quality of services provided, is increasingly being utilised by law firms: do you believe these best practices should be used to improve the services of the law firm? (c) Don t know. 16. If you have answered yes to the previous question, what added value do you believe a quality system could offer the law firm? (a) Better organization of the firm; (b) Optimisation in establishing the firm s roles and duties; (c) Continuity in the service over time and constant quality standard; (d) Assistance in work planning and programming; (e) Optimisation and distribution of work loads; (f) Reduction of risks of error and non compliances with respect of client requests; (g) Responses to offers to bid from the Public Authorities; (h) Competitive element. 17. Has your firm encountered any problems in document management, knowledge management and quality control? (a) Yes. If so, please explain: 6