Description

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"Marc's book breaks down legal knowledge management into easily accessible steps through well thought out processes and tools. This book will help law firms make great leaps forward in capturing and getting the most out of the knowledge assets they have." -- Catherine Bamford, CEO and Founder, BamLegalThis ground-breaking guide introduces lawyers and other professionals to a powerful class of software that supports core aspects of legal work. The author discusses how technologies like practice systems, work product retrieval, document assembly, and interactive checklists help people work smarter. Almost every practitioner can work smarter, and software helps make that possible.This book supplies the guidance for you to determine what technologies are right for your practice and your needs. It provides a clear roadmap on software tools for doing legal work--not just by lawyers but also by other professionals in traditional law firm settings as well as in corporate, governmental, and nonprofit contexts.In using the term "knowledge tool," author Marc Lauritsen covers software with significant knowledge content that does something, that applies or processes knowledge beyond just storing or moving it. The book looks at these software tools that can improve the effectiveness your legal work: - Case/matter management- Work product retrieval- Document assembly- Interactive questionnaires- Intelligent checklists- Expert systems- Decision support toolsAs the author explains, "few lawyers are even making optimal use of software that came out a decade ago. We owe it to ourselves and to our clients to do better. You can realize many practical benefits by working smarter. More time, more impact, more professional satisfaction. Knowledge tools are increasingly central to those benefits. My goal is to help you seize them.

About the Author

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Marc Lauritsen is a Massachusetts lawyer and educator with over 35 years of experience in knowledge system development. After earning degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School, he worked as a poverty lawyer and became director of clinical programs and a senior research associate at Harvard. He established Capstone Practice Systems in 1998 and later served as vice president for practice technology (and "chief e-legal officer") at AmeriCounsel.com, an Internet legal services company. He has taught at five law schools. Lauritsen has lectured and published widely on the uses and implications of information technology in the legal profession. He is active in professional and scholarly communities concerned with law and technology both nationally and internationally. He is a technology correspondent for Artificial Intelligence and Law, past cochair of the American Bar Association's eLawyering Task Force, and a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management.