Impressions of KM and Legal Operations from the EBRD conference – ‘Development Finance Lawyers: Delivering Knowledge Innovation and Impact
Paul Byfield, Legal Knowledge Manager
Office of the General Counsel
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
Office of the General Counsel
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
The KM Project, within the EBRD’s Office of the General Counsel, whilst being an internal project has always ‘looked outwards’ for ideas and inspiration from its peers and counterparts (for example IFIs as well as law firms and others in the professional services sector).
Members of the KM team attend external conferences and liaise with their peers to learn about what is happening in the wider market and to keep up with technical developments.
Most recently, as part of its outreach activities, the team organised a conference to foster discussion and the sharing of best practice knowledge in this space. The conference, entitled “Development Finance Lawyers: Delivering Knowledge, Innovation and Impact” took place at the EBRD HQ in London on 20 November 2019. The ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Innovation’ mentioned in the title were catered for during the morning session in the program organised by the KM team.
The audience and invited speakers and panelists included senior leaders from law firms, management consultancies, IFIs and from other in-house teams in industry; who were all keen to share best practice and learn from their peers across the sector.
The focus of the morning session was around the following key themes: (i) standards and best practice; (ii) the KM experience as a learning tool; and (iii) use of legal technology to support management of content and processes.
The first session of the morning featured a presentation by renowned KM consultant and expert Paul Corney who introduced the new KM Standard ISO 30401 (www.iso.org/standard/68683). This is the first ISO standard dealing with KM and was implemented by a committee of experts, including Paul himself.
The standard sets requirements and provides guidelines for establishing, implementing, maintaining, reviewing and improving an effective management system for knowledge management in organisations. Paul set about introducing the standard by way of the ‘KM Cookbook’ that he co-authored.
This presentation was followed by a panel discussion, including Jo Cornish, Head of Sector Development at CILIP, (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
The ISO Standard has been key to the development, by CILIP, of the KM Chartership Accreditation (www.cilip.org.uk/page/KnowledgeManagementChartership ), which is aligned with it. Dion Lindsay, another leading KM consultant, was keen to stress the possibility of the standard unifying the profession. I concluded the session by talking about my initial reaction to embarking on the Chartership program and the influence of the standard as a framework for professional development. I also called on my colleague, an Officer in the Records Management & Archives Team, to talk about the impact of standards in that related discipline, a point that was well received by the rest of the audience.
Following on from this Tabitha Sutcliffe, also a Legal Knowledge Manager at the EBRD, presented the findings from the KM survey, conducted as a precursor to the conference.
An initial question, and one that enabled all organisations to identify with and respond to the survey, was ‘Where is your organisation on its KM journey?’ It is clear from the responses that none of the organisations are at the stage where Knowledge Management has been completed (i.e. the current system and processes don’t need to be improved) and, in fact, the majority of respondents recognised that there is still a lot to be done (perhaps a recognition that KM is a constantly travelled journey and not a destination that can be ultimately reached!?)
Members of the KM team attend external conferences and liaise with their peers to learn about what is happening in the wider market and to keep up with technical developments.
Most recently, as part of its outreach activities, the team organised a conference to foster discussion and the sharing of best practice knowledge in this space. The conference, entitled “Development Finance Lawyers: Delivering Knowledge, Innovation and Impact” took place at the EBRD HQ in London on 20 November 2019. The ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Innovation’ mentioned in the title were catered for during the morning session in the program organised by the KM team.
The audience and invited speakers and panelists included senior leaders from law firms, management consultancies, IFIs and from other in-house teams in industry; who were all keen to share best practice and learn from their peers across the sector.
The focus of the morning session was around the following key themes: (i) standards and best practice; (ii) the KM experience as a learning tool; and (iii) use of legal technology to support management of content and processes.
The first session of the morning featured a presentation by renowned KM consultant and expert Paul Corney who introduced the new KM Standard ISO 30401 (www.iso.org/standard/68683). This is the first ISO standard dealing with KM and was implemented by a committee of experts, including Paul himself.
The standard sets requirements and provides guidelines for establishing, implementing, maintaining, reviewing and improving an effective management system for knowledge management in organisations. Paul set about introducing the standard by way of the ‘KM Cookbook’ that he co-authored.
This presentation was followed by a panel discussion, including Jo Cornish, Head of Sector Development at CILIP, (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
The ISO Standard has been key to the development, by CILIP, of the KM Chartership Accreditation (www.cilip.org.uk/page/KnowledgeManagementChartership ), which is aligned with it. Dion Lindsay, another leading KM consultant, was keen to stress the possibility of the standard unifying the profession. I concluded the session by talking about my initial reaction to embarking on the Chartership program and the influence of the standard as a framework for professional development. I also called on my colleague, an Officer in the Records Management & Archives Team, to talk about the impact of standards in that related discipline, a point that was well received by the rest of the audience.
Following on from this Tabitha Sutcliffe, also a Legal Knowledge Manager at the EBRD, presented the findings from the KM survey, conducted as a precursor to the conference.
An initial question, and one that enabled all organisations to identify with and respond to the survey, was ‘Where is your organisation on its KM journey?’ It is clear from the responses that none of the organisations are at the stage where Knowledge Management has been completed (i.e. the current system and processes don’t need to be improved) and, in fact, the majority of respondents recognised that there is still a lot to be done (perhaps a recognition that KM is a constantly travelled journey and not a destination that can be ultimately reached!?)
The third session neatly followed on from the survey results and featured KM practitioners and lawyers responsible for KM from ADB, EBRD, ECB, HSBC, Government Legal Department. All provided insightful accounts of their organisation’s experiences and lessons learned during the KM journey. The session was moderated by Bill Kaplan, a leading KM consultant who has direct experience of working with large corporates and IFIs.
The final session of the day was devoted to Legal Operations and included a stellar line up of leading practitioners in this field, including representatives from Allen & Overy, Deloittes, EBRD, EY, and Norton Rose, moderated by 2 senior lawyers from EBRD. The session commenced with an introduction to Artificial Intelligence and this led into a very interesting and wide-ranging discussion amongst the panel about various aspects of the multi-faceted discipline of Legal Operations and how it can support and enhance the work that lawyers do; including document automation, KPIs and metrics, workflow and intelligent automation.
Feedback from the attendees was positive, on both the content of the presentations and of the panel discussions, and the open floor discussions that took place. In addition, the networking opportunities created by the conference were appreciated.
Considering the pace of change in this area there was much discussion amongst the attendees on the potential for sharing information on best practice developments, and there are now proposals to start a Legal KM Community amongst IFIs and to restart the KMIT Group (in- house KM practitioners predominantly based in and around Greater London.
The final session of the day was devoted to Legal Operations and included a stellar line up of leading practitioners in this field, including representatives from Allen & Overy, Deloittes, EBRD, EY, and Norton Rose, moderated by 2 senior lawyers from EBRD. The session commenced with an introduction to Artificial Intelligence and this led into a very interesting and wide-ranging discussion amongst the panel about various aspects of the multi-faceted discipline of Legal Operations and how it can support and enhance the work that lawyers do; including document automation, KPIs and metrics, workflow and intelligent automation.
Feedback from the attendees was positive, on both the content of the presentations and of the panel discussions, and the open floor discussions that took place. In addition, the networking opportunities created by the conference were appreciated.
Considering the pace of change in this area there was much discussion amongst the attendees on the potential for sharing information on best practice developments, and there are now proposals to start a Legal KM Community amongst IFIs and to restart the KMIT Group (in- house KM practitioners predominantly based in and around Greater London.